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dancingamongstdust · 3 years

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Creepypasta Scenarios - First Meeting Part 2

Hoodie

The area where you lived had a ton of back alleyways that acted as shortcuts in a pinch. They were generally safe but you often got an uncomfortable feeling when using them so you preferred to take the busier roads if you could.

Unfortunately, when you had gone to leave work that day, you had spotted the customer who had been harassing you the entire day. It wasn’t anything creepy but it was over-the-top persistent and you weren’t in the mood to deal with it. You slipped out the backdoor as a result. At least you’d get home sooner.

For the most part, you didn’t encounter anything too suspicious and the light from the streets illuminated where you were going.

The large bins outside the grocer’s home indicated that you were getting close. You sped up and rubbed your eyes blearily.

Ahead of you, a dog was barking from inside one of the buildings. It was a pretty noisy animal and you began peering around to see what the source of its agitation was. Ironically, you ended up bumping directly into him.

“I’m sorry,” you apologised, rubbing your shoulder.

The guy was tall, wearing dark clothing and standing right in the shadows. You could have probably noticed him if you were a little more awake.

He turned and your breath caught.

His face was obscured by a dark mask with red features stitched onto it. His hoodie which originally seemed dark was now illuminated into a soft yellow or orange, stained with a dark substance.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice crackled out, clearly coming through a voice changer of some kind.

“I – I was just taking a shortcut home. I live near here so I thought… I really didn’t mean to bump into you. I’m super tired.”

“Tired or not, you shouldn’t have seen me,” the guy said. “Do you have a phone or a camera?”

Slowly, you reached into your bag and pulled out your phone. “I don’t have any cash in my wallet –“

“I don’t want your money!” he snapped. “I’m not some petty thief, believe me, I have better things to do with me time. Unlock this.”

You did so and he went through it with a gloved hand. He didn’t have a weapon but something in your gut warned you to just go along with it. Nobody covered up everything, including their voice, when they were up to something good. This guy may not be a thief… but the alternative didn’t feel too much better.

He shoved your phone back at you. “Get out of here and don’t breathe a word of this to anybody. Consider yourself lucky that I’m in a good mood today.”

You swallowed nervously. “Thank you?”

“I’m serious,” he warned. “I can let you go just because you seem pathetic enough to not take this to the police but unless you want to catch a bullet in your back, you’ll keep quiet. My boss doesn’t like people getting involved with this nonsense.”

“A bullet?”

He didn’t answer and your heart thundered in your chest. Part of you wondered if he was going to kill you while you ran away but his attention seemed to have moved away from you. You hurried away, holding your breath the entire time. Every time you glanced over your shoulder, the guy remained unmoving.

When you reached your home, you locked the door tightly and slumped against it in exhaustion.

Homicidal Liu

The sunset was beautiful over the graveyard – the only beauty to an otherwise morbid place.

You stared at the purples and oranges dancing across the sky. The wreath pricked at your hands after a while and you stared down at it. Why did you still bother with bringing flowers? Hadn’t it been long enough? Still, you made your way down to the grave and placed them there, not even bothering to read the name on there.

Lately, your graveyard visits had becoming fewer and fewer. Time hadn’t been on your side recently and thus, your precious solitude had to suffer. You relished in the way that nobody really bothered you here.

An orange glow warned you when the streetlights came on. Perhaps you had been there for longer than you thought but this was to be your last visit.

Better to make it count.

Something caught in the wind made you raise your head. A piece of fabric was stuck in the nearby fence, identifiable as a scarf when you ventured closer.

You took it from the fence and looked around for its owner. Nobody was in view… maybe it had been blown off one of the graves? It did seem homemade.

Guessing, you began to place it on a grave when a voice startled you.

“I’m sorry to bother but I think you have my scarf?”

The man was standing far too close for you to have not seen him when you were glancing around but you blamed that on your night vision. He wore dark clothing and seemed awkward just to be speaking to you.

“Thank goodness,” you said. “I was just going to leave it on one of the graves because I didn’t know who it belonged to.”

He thanked you for it, wrapping it around the lower half of his face almost immediately. “That would be a waste,” he said. “Especially to leave it on this one. Thank you for grabbing it.”

A harsh wind blew through the graveyard, carrying with it the smell of an incoming storm. He grabbed his scarf just in time to prevent it from going flying away again.

“Seems like the weather is determined to steal it from you.”

“Far more powerful things have tried.”

You buried yourself further into your jacket and smiled. “I haven’t seen you around before, are you new in town or just coming to visit a new grave?”

“I’m not visiting a grave,” he admitted. “I just thought that this would be the way back to my house… I grew up in this town but only recently moved back and I’m already lost. It’s a little embarrassing if I’m honest.”

“Well, I like to know everybody,” you said. “What’s your name?”

“Su – I mean, Liu,” he said. “Liu. Sorry, I nearly gave you my surname.”

You laughed. “Oh that’s no problem. It’s nice to meet you but I really like your name. Is it Chinese?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He looked around and began walking away. “I really have to go. Thank you for getting my scarf and all that.”

“I’ll see you around,” you said with a wave.

It was only later when you realised how suspicious that entire interaction was. You had never seen Liu before in your life and he was just hanging around in the graveyard? He hadn’t seemed too creepy at least. Maybe you would see more of him in the coming days.

Jane the Killer

It wasn’t that you were unobservant or inattentive toward girls but nobody had really caught your eye until Jane.

She was stunning in a way that few people could ever match with dark hair that tumbled past her hips and soulful eyes. Her walk was always confident, her smile always perfect, and her attention always desirable. Your main regret about life was that you didn’t speak to her sooner – especially when you thought back on what happened not too long after your first meeting.

You organised with your friends to somehow bump into her but instead, you wound up getting treated for a pretty painful bruised hip. Your second plan didn’t work out either and your third never even left the drawing board.

“Just go up to her and say hi. Tell her that she’s beautiful,” your friend encouraged. “She’ll say thanks and then you’ll be able to talk to her.”

“That’s so boring though,” you said. “It’s not like something out of a romance novel.”

Your friend groaned and stood up. “Well, I’m going home. We have like three months left of high school and I’m not going to spend that time obsessing over how to speak to a girl. She’s literally a regular person.”

They were right and you knew that. No matter how you tried to set up a sweeping romance, it probably wouldn’t work out.

So you tried.

And you tried.

Two weeks later, you were about to give up on mimicking a romance novel and it appeared that your friend was thinking the same thing. She grabbed your arm and began to drag you somewhere, muttering about changing the topic. You had a vague idea of where you were going but you didn’t fight too much.

“What if she’s still dating that Woods boy?” you asked. “The older one.”

“They broke up after literally a month of dating. I don’t blame her – those Woods boys are pretty enough but the older one has something seriously wrong with him. And the younger one is always talking to himself…”

“I really don’t care about the Woods’,” you commented.

“No, you care about Jane who is honestly quite weird as well,” they said. “But that is going to be your problem and not mine.”

They dragged you directly up to her group. It wasn’t large – despite Jane’s beauty, she wasn’t incredibly popular due to her associations. Your friend wasn’t the only one who was a little scared of the Woods boys and Jane had hung out with them for quite a while.

“Hey,” your friend said before even letting you go. “You have no idea who we are but my friend here has a massive crush on you. Could you please just say hi so they can get it out of their system?”

You were sure that it was unhealthy to be as red as you were. It felt like your heart was about to leap from your chest.

Jane laughed, a soft and gentle sound. “I’m not really interested in a relationship,” she hummed. “But thank you. That’s very flattering.”

Somehow, your heart sped up still and you awkwardly rubbed your arm. “No problem?”

“Why don’t you join us for a little bit?” Jane offered. “Just because I don’t want to date anybody doesn’t mean that we can’t become friends. You look like my kind of person.”

You stumbled over your words but somehow, your conversation managed to go extremely well. Jane was brilliant in every possible way and you quickly grew attached to seeing her every day. That was why you mourned so greatly when she died.

Jason the Toymaker

The sun was so warm against your skin. You could stay there forever, stretched out on the grass and basking in the sunlight.

“It’s done,” your friend’s voice broke through your daydreaming

You opened your eyes and rolled over to see exactly what they had been working on for the entire trip. After realising the first few times that you weren’t going to get a reaction, you had decided to wait for them to finish working before you tried to have a conversation.

“I didn’t know you could draw,” you said. “That’s amazing.”

The hyper-realistic man was sketched to perfection with a top hat, a fur coat, and a small mouse sitting on his left shoulder. It felt like his eyes could piece into your soul.

“Who is that?” you asked them.

They stared blankly at the image and shook their head. “I don’t know,” they said. “He’s been in my dreams for so long. I think it has something to do with my amnesia. Maybe I knew him once before.”

“He’s a little intimidating,” you said. “I could imagine him to be a ringleader in a circus that’s like a secret cult. Maybe he’s why you lost your memory.”

“Maybe…” they said, tapping the picture. They suddenly shoved it into your chest and stood up. “You keep that. I don’t want it anywhere near me. I need to go talk to my parents.”

You watched them race out of the park in confusion. The man in the picture stared up at you with haunting eyes.

Folding it in half so it didn’t freak you out, you stood and dusted off your clothing. Maybe it would be best if you headed home. It was getting late either way.

Later on, you’d call your friend and check up on them.

About 10 minutes away from your house, the feeling of being watched snuck up on you. It hung heavily around your shoulders like a cloak. You glanced around but saw nobody.

Still, you didn’t feel comfortable leading whoever was following you back to your house. You made a point of walking amongst large crowds and headed for the police station.

They were watching you the whole way.

You sped up. A few people bumped into you and you apologised as best as you could. Your grip on the picture was getting tighter enough for you to tear it. The later it got, the fewer people were on the streets and so you were pretty much alone when you bumped into him.

It took you a few seconds to recognise the man from the drawing.

If you thought his drawn eyes were captivating, they had nothing on his real ones which glowed with an almost ethereal light.

“You’re him,” you breathed.

He stared at you, smile falling from his face in confusion. “Who?”

You shakily held out the drawing and he yanked it from your hands. “My friend drew that,” you explained. “They said that its of somebody from their past. They have amnesia you see.”

He was unmoving as he studied the picture. You began feeling a little uncomfortable and then his gaze snapped to you. “Is that so?” he asked.

You nodded and took a small step away from him. “Maybe you should go and talk to them? See –“ you swallowed nervously. “See if you can help them remember?”

“No need,” he said, dropping the paper on the ground. “Who are you?”

Your name came out as little more than a soft whisper. Something about the entire scenario made you uneasy. His appearance was too unnatural.

A gust of wind came by, picking up the drawing and whipping it away. You watched it go and when you looked back down, his eyes were locked on you.

“Such a pity,” he said. “You would have been the perfect doll.”

Wearily, you took a step backwards. His words made your stomach churn uneasily. “What are you talking about?”

He smiled. It was kind and warm but it only made you more nervous. His eyes looked like they had almost changed colour; shifted a shade darker than previously. “Thinking aloud my dear,” he said.

“About dolls?” you asked.

He tilted his head a little towards you. “I’m going to have to bid you goodbye. It seems I have other matters to attend to.” He brushed past you, stopping briefly when directly next to you. “Consider yourself lucky.”

He was gone before you could even spin around to face him.

Jeff the Killer

Pausing the song, you removed your earphones as quietly as possible and placed them down on your desk. According to the blinking numbers on your phone screen, it was nearing 2 AM. Far too late for anybody to make an excess of noise.

You listened closely. The music had been too loud for you to hear anything and you almost brushed the strange noise off as your sleep-deprived imagination. Until something squeaked like shoe soles on tiles.

In retrospect, you should have immediately called 911 but you didn’t want to sound a false alarm.

The light switch was thankfully directly outside your room. The hall illuminated most of the house when they were on and it steeled your nerves. Your roommate’s door was open, allowing you to confirm their sleeping state, curled up in their bed amongst the piles of mess. They had had to move to the spare room due to a faulty window earlier in the day and had clearly given up sorting items.

You glanced into the apartment’s other rooms before heading to the kitchen. There was nothing odd. The scuttling when you entered the kitchen just suggested that your neighbour’s rat infestation may be migrating.

Making a mental note to call the exterminator, you turned to switch off the kitchen light.

Something slammed into you, forcing your back to collide with a wall. A hand covered your mouth and the overwhelming scent of blood and decay invaded your nose. Something cold and sharp pressed against your neck.

“Shut up and stay still,” the man snarled at you. “I don’t think anybody will appreciate you getting blood in the kitchen.”

Your heart leapt into your throat and your body stilled. The man in front of you was terrifying. His skin pale and mutilated. Eyes far too wide for a normal person and dancing with an insanity that sent chills down your spine.

And his mouth… a bloody smile carved across his face, stretching halfway to his ears.

He studied your face carefully and his expression twisted. “You’re not the right one,” he snapped. The knife moved away from your neck, so he could point with it. “I had this all planned and yet when I came into that room, I found it empty. Why?”

Even if he hadn’t been holding your mouth shut, you doubted you would have been able to formulate an answer. The pounding heartbeat in your ears was nearly blocking out his voice.

He lightly tapped your cheek with his knife. “Not that it matters,” he said. “I’ll just have to adapt my original plan. You’re not the right target but I’m a huge fan of collateral damage.”

A small whimper escaped you and tears welled at your eyes. You didn’t want to die.

“Don’t blubber!” he ordered. “View it as a good thing. You’ll be all over the news. Another victim of Jeff the Killer. Hell, you might even be added to a Wikipedia page or something.”

You could recall that name from the news. Often followed by a lengthy list of deaths and the police chief begging for any information about the murderer.

Jeff stared at you for a long minute before he pressed the knife’s blade to your throat and moved his hand away from your mouth. “Scream and I will remove your vocal cords,” he threatened. “Who are you?”

It took several deep breaths and a flicker of impatience in his expression to give you the ability to talk again. You stammered out your full name as quickly as you possibly could.

He rolled his eyes and tilted the knife so it scratched your skin. A sticky and warm substance ran down your throat in small droplets. “Pathetic.”

“Sorry,” you whispered on instinct. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Why not?” he asked. “You ruined my earlier plans to take out my original target by interrupting me before I could find them. Why shouldn’t I settle for you instead?”

You didn’t have an answer.

He took the blade away from your throat. “If you call the police and report what happened here tonight, I will slice you into little pieces.”

It was almost twenty minutes after he left before you regained any movement in your body. You slumped into a heap on the kitchen floor and started sobbing.

Kagekao

Things had been going missing around your house.

Initially, you had thought it was just due to you forgetting where you’d plopped things because it was simple things. Drinks that vanished, keys turning up on the opposite side of the house, and random spills that you didn’t remember making.

But then it started getting weirder still.

You would make food and pack it away, knowing that you would eat it later, and find it gone. Picture frames disappeared, never to be seen again. Your rug half-unraveled during the night and you found it in a pile the next morning. A candle in your bathroom fell over and, somehow, the curtains on the other side of the house had caught alight.

It was suspicious, to say the very least. You began to think that you had some kind of intruder – once, the news reported that a woman found a homeless man living in her attic and eating her food when she wasn’t looking.

So you went out and bought cameras, setting them up throughout your house.

For two weeks, they caught nothing until one of them ended up breaking. You went to get it repaired and the company managed to recover what it had last seen. Which was nothing on your first glance.

But you were soon to realise, that was only because you had been looking at the floor.

While you were rewatching when you got home, you noticed something. The window was sitting wide open and the camera’s angle only allowed you to see half of it. Right toward the end of the feed, a gloved hand appeared on the side of the window and a slight shadow indicated something climbing through.

So you got reinforced windows and made sure that none were open unless you were in the room.

Things still continued happening.

You were beginning to get really annoyed by this. It was tempting to go to the police and let them just handle it but that was going to be a lot of effort that you really didn’t care for. You didn’t feel like you were in much danger. Nothing had happened in your bedroom.

Your next plan was to set up a trap of some kind. With a hidden camera set up, you made extra food and left it on the counter to see if something happened.

The next day, you watched as a plastic toy of some kind was thrown directly into the plate from somewhere off-camera, breaking it and leaving an absolute mess everywhere.

Still not considering it to be anything dangerous, you just cleaned up the mess and loudly cursed out anybody who was listening. You stalked the house after that, searching every nook and cranny with a bat in hand. The final place was the closet in your bedroom and you peered in, expecting nothing.

When you turned around though, you spotted something sitting in the corner of the room.

It was humanoid with arms twisted into awkward positions and a mask on its face. Half the mask was black and the other white, both sides bearing an unnaturally smiling expression. The creature cackled when you saw it and scuttled out of the door, stuck to the roof the entire time.

A second passed.

Then another.

You pinched your arm hard and waited to wake up. Surely there was no way… I mean, why would… humans didn’t generally crawl along the ceiling? Well, you were quite sure they never did that. You must have been imagining it.

A second laugh corrected you on that.

You swallowed thickly, walked over to your door as calmly as possible and locked it. Then you took out your phone and finally called the police.

Kate the Chaser

The day when Kate was sent away remained very clear in your mind. It was a moment that brought extremely change to your life, mixing up your friend group and sending you in a different direction.

The years has passed and you had never gotten over your best friend. They said that she had lost her mind and you knew it was true. All those games investigating the woods and ghost hunting must have put a toll on her mind. Sometimes, you blamed yourself for all the pranks and you knew that Lauren had similar doubts.

And now she was back.

Lauren and you hadn’t remained close, the entire situation feeling too real with one another. Your greeting was stilted but neither of you wanted to be the first to approach the house.

“Do you think that she remembers us?” Lauren asked.

“If she didn’t then her mom wouldn’t have invited us over,” you said.

You stood in complete silence, staring up at the house. Would you even recognise Kate? The last time that you had seen her was when you were both young children and her face remained at that age in your memories.

Eventually, you gained your confidence before Lauren and you walked over, knocking on the door before anxiety could find you.

Kate answered the door and you forgot why you had ever been nervous.

Time had slimmed her face and shortened her hair. Her eyes were still a gentle brown and the cockiness had faded from her smile, but it was recognisable from your nostalgia. It made you feel warm and known – an aura that you had missed without even realising it.

“Hi,” you greeted.

Kate pulled you into a tight hug and you returned it, clutching at her tightly as though she could slip through your fingers. It really had been too long and when you moved away, she held onto Lauren with the same enthusiasm.

“How have you been?” she asked. “You have to tell me everything.”

The three of you spent the rest of the afternoon having tea and just talking about the world at large. Kate didn’t have many stories from the hospital – she claimed it was because the place had been extremely boring and neither of you pushed to find out more about it. Honestly, it was more comfortable to act as though she had simply moved away.

Lauren had to leave first and you were going to go with her but Kate had looked so down that you remained just a little longer. That was when things got weird.

“I’ve missed music a lot,” Kate sighed.

“Did they not allow you to listen to music?”

She grimaced. “No, they did but often I couldn’t hear it over the static. Its mostly gone away now but it came back last night… it fills my brain and all that I can think of is a way to make the pain stop.”

The colour drained from your face as you stared at her. You didn’t know much about what happened to her but you had thought she would be okay now.

Realising it, Kate hurried to reassure you, “I really have recovered,” she said. “My hallucinations have faded and my medication keeps my emotions in check. You really don’t have to be scared of me.”

You stared down at your cup awkwardly. “I’m not scared of you,” you reassured her. “You’ve never done anything to me.”

She nodded. “It will be alright, you’ll see. I’m ready to get back to a normal life with my friends and not have to worry about that ghost stuff ever again.”

Laughing Jack

It was on your leg…

The glare you fixed the small child with could wilt plants. It didn’t care though and merely clutched at your clothing with a happy smile. “Come play with me?” it asked. “I can introduce you to all my friends!”

“How old is she again?” you grumbled at your friend.

Your friend laughed and ruffled their cousin’s hair. “I had an imaginary friend when I was 10. She’s only 6, she’s still at the stage where they’re a big deal.”

The child was oblivious to your conversation and reached out her arms. “Come on. The parents are being boring. I have candy that my friend gave me. We can share it.”

“I agreed to come along to your family get together to keep you company,” you said to your friend. “You know I don’t like children. Babysitting really isn’t my forte.”

All you received for your complaining was laughter.

By the time you had the 4th teddy bear had been introduced, you were done. Why did one kid have so many toys?

“Now which one of your friends gives you candy?” your friend asked. “Because if it’s from Princess, I don’t think it’s edible. What if she secretly puts glitter in it?”

Expected to play along, you sighed. “Unless it’s glitter from rainbows because then it’s got magic powers and allows you to fly.”

The child liked your thumb-sucked statement because she jumped up in excitement. “I don’t get it from Princess. Jack gives it to me! But if Princess can make me fly, I want to have that kind of candy instead!”

“Which one’s Jack again?” you asked, eyeing the line of toys.

“He’s not here right now,” the child said, biting her inner cheek. She turned in a circle. “Sometimes he hides in the cupboard though!” She ran over to her cupboard and pulled the doors open. “I don’t think – OW!”

She reeled backwards, clutching her cheek. Both you and your friend immediately jumped up and ran over to her. A tiny slice mark ran across the side of her face. It wasn’t anything serious, but she was sobbing as though it would kill her. You presumed a small edge on one of the boxes in the cupboard had been the cause.

“Do you want me to take you to mom, so she can kiss it better?” your friend asked. “Your new best friend can wait here and make sure all your toys are safe.”

The child nodded, and she got led out of the room. You rolled your eyes at the sensitivity and reached into the cupboard to push the box out of the way. A clawed hand reached out of nowhere and grabbed your wrist tightly.

Before you could even shout, it lifted you off the ground by your arm and a second hand had wrapped around your mouth.

The monster’s body appeared out of the closet.

It was a clown. Easily 7ft tall and comprised of monochrome colours with a sharp, pointed nose and long, greasy hair. Its black lips spread into a smile, revealing pointed teeth and a sickeningly sweet breath.

You writhed against its grip, trying to scream or do anything but it was insanely strong, and it just laughed at your efforts.

“How mean,” it purred, leaning in close to your face. “You ask who I am and then, when I appear to you, you insult my appearance. Awful etiquette. Your parents should be concerned about how rude you are to strangers.”

You strained your memory to think about what you had been doing before it grabbed you but the adrenaline was clouding your mind. What had you asked? You struggled more with the lack of memories.

The clown shook its head. “I haven’t revealed myself to somebody so old in a long time. You should be flattered but instead you choose to try and kick me. This is why I don’t do this. Children are far more polite.”

He released you suddenly and you landed hard on the ground. It winked and disappeared, right as your friend and her cousin returned.

“You met Jack!” the child shouted excitedly, pointing to the candy lying next to you.

You shoved it away from you as quickly as possible.

#creepypasta #scenarios #hoodie x reader #marble hornets #homicidal liu #jeff the killer #jane the killer #jason the toymaker #kagekao #x reader #jeff the killer x reader #laughing jack #kate the chaser

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bedbellyandbeyond · 3 years

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Call A Friend

(Story Post)

“Are the kids alright?” Nari asked. “Yeah, Korsgaard said they were angels, but I have a feeling he's lying...” Nathan sighed. “I bet they bit someone...” “You can't assume that.” Nari was sitting outside the library talking to Nathan. Nathan had told him to check in if his search lasted more than a week and since he still had no luck, after spending seven days in the expansive library, he took a break to call his friend. “Can you believe he compared me kissing Kent to him literally sleeping with him?” Nathan huffed. “And we're back to that... I don't think I'm allowed to have an opinion on that,” Nari said. “You know, considering my previous relationship to your partner...” “But I'd like your opinion,” Nathan said. “I'm still really fucking lost...”

Nari sighed. “All I know is that it doesn't sound like Dax's behaviour. Cheating on someone just isn't in his nature. One-night stands aren't his thing as he needs time to get to know someone before he'll have sex with them. He's incredibly loyal and he loves you very much.” “I know, I know...” Nathan groaned. “I'm just so confused...” “I would believe that this was something out of his control,” Nari said. “I wouldn't believe it's something out of Kent's control, however, I don't know him.” “Right, I figure Kent's been bullshitting me on a lot of things,” Nathan said. “Like, the guy is so obviously gay, or bi or whatever, but he won't admit it and instead hides himself behind homophobia and ill manners.” “I’m not surprised.” “I mean, we know why he won't come out, it's so...” Nathan groaned. “It's so frustrating. Like, I get that what happened to him was really fucking tragic, you know, losing his girlfriend and his kid, but it was twenty years ago!” “Nathan, I know you're not trying to be mean, but twenty years is not a very long time,” Nari said. “The pain that comes from outliving your children never goes away.” Nathan let out a long sigh. “Right... I suppose you would know... Sorry.” “No, but I understand your point,” Nari said. “He is allowing the pain to prevent him from being himself and opening up to people. That is something that happens to a lot of vampires who get stuck in their feelings... I read a book about a vampire who strictly only drank the blood of red heads because his dead wife had red hair. I didn't like that book.” “Shit,” Nathan cursed. “I haven't asked you about how the search is going... And it’s 11pm here, it must be really late over there. I'm sorry.” “I'm literally a vampire and I called you,” Nari stated. “Right, I'm stupid. Sorry.” “Anyway, this has proved a much more complex task than I had originally thought,” Nari said. “A lot of literature about vampires is written like fiction, in storytelling and such. I naïvely expected I was just going to find a textbook on vampire reproductive systems, but it's just been novels and more novels on vampires giving birth to demons and dark beasts and all kinds of nonsense... Finding fact in fiction is incredibly exhausting, and that's only after finding the books in the first place...” “I'm sorry... Have you asked a librarian or someone to help you look?” Nathan asked. “No... I have no interest in talking to these bloodsuckers... These monsters still use the familiar system around here!” Nari said. “Which system?” “Familiars. You know, human servants promised to be turned one day.” “Ah. Slavery.” “That's what I said.” Nathan sighed. “Well, keep your chin up... You're brilliant and tenacious. You'll find what you need, I'm sure.” “I don't know,” Nari said. “I’ve left Diederich alone quite a while now. I feel maybe I should start looking for the magic books he's been asking about and then we can just go home...” “Aw, don't give up like that,” Nathan said. “I'm sure Diederich is fine on his own and he's there to support you. You just need to keep looking.” “Maybe...” Nari said. “I feel like I'm going crazy. Only thing helping me keep track of time is that more vampires are in the library at night time. The library is completely enclosed during the day, but most of them go home to sleep.” “So, you haven't slept at all?” Nathan asked. “Well, one time I got really bored and nodded off on a couch for about two hours...” Nari said. “Just because you can stay awake for days and days without end, doesn't mean you don't need sleep,” Nathan said. “How do you know that?” Nari said. “How do you I need sleep at all?” “You've told me,” Nathan said. “You told me, the longer you go without sleep, the harder it is to focus and your memory starts to fail you. Like literally right now.” “Oh... Right. That's true,” Nari said. “I suggest you go back to your hotel for a day, get some sleep, at least twelve hours, and then come back in a fresh set of clothes to try the library again where you left off. You need a fresher mind for this. You're tired.” Nari nodded. “You're probably right... Anyway, I'm done with me. Back to your problems.” “Uh, I don't know what else there is to say,” Nathan said. “Did the bear guy see his kids yet?” Nari asked. “Yes, well, we did a video session earlier tonight,” Nathan said. “It's really really hard to hate him when you see him get all emotional from just the kids...” “Did he cry?” “Like a baby,” Nathan snickered. “Hopefully he can compose himself when he sees them next weekend in person.” “And you're comfortable with that?” Nari asked. “Well, yeah... I mean, he's their dad and I'll be there,” Nathan said. “He'll have to promise not to argue with me in front of them... I've made it pretty clear I have full authority over his connection to them.” “Hm... And Dax won't be there this time?” Nathan paused. “No, I don't think so...” “Do you have anyone else you can bring?” Nari asked. “I'm not sure I like knowing it'll just be you and those babies out there in the woods...” “I don't think Kent is a threat to us...” Nathan said. “But I get what you mean. APID’s keeping an eye on him. He usually avoids them, but it'll be part of the condition that he can only see them if he cooperates with APID agents.” “That’s good, yes. Bring an agent with you,” Nari said, flexing his claws. “I'd go with you if I could...” “Well, maybe you'll get lucky and find exactly what you're looking for before the weekend,” Nathan said. “Then you could do the trip with me.” Nari scoffed. “I doubt it... This place is an abyss. If you see me next weekend, it's because I gave up and decided to adopt or something...” “Well, I believe in you,” Nathan said. “You can do it.” Nari sighed. “Well... I’m still on the escort thing. Doesn't your case worker have a field agent for a son? Kingsley or something?” “Korsy, yeah,” Nathan said. “The agent who went with us last week was named Hanover, but he was a bit gun happy, and Korsy might be a better fit... I'll ask Korsgaard if he's available. I know he flies across the country and into the states sometimes on assignments, so he could be busy.” “Well, I'll cross my fingers for you that he's available,” Nari said. “Anything else you want to talk about?” Nathan took a deep breath. “Well, all this started because I hosted Wano in my home... I get upset just thinking about it, but I can't tell if I'm being a bit of an asshole about his situation.” “You haven't shared the situation,” Nari said. “Long story short, he's getting deported but he started seeing this guy from my pregnancy group to have a baby, and they did it in my house when I wasn't home, without my consent...” “Um. What? Of course, you're not the asshole. He is being disrespectful to you and your home. Has he apologised?” “Err... Maybe when I transformed... I scared the shit out of him.” “Hm... Well, yes. You don't have to keep him around. It's not fair to you if you're housing him out of your own goodwill. And if you don't even have your own home, why would you have a baby?” “Right? Both of them live out of other people's places. I can't imagine Jeffrey's cousin will be happy with another baby in his apartment.” “Who's Jeffrey?” “Wano's new partner, I guess... In my opinion he's still a baby himself. Both of them are.” “But they're both consenting adults?” Nari asked. “Yeah.” “Nothing you can do but kick them out. It's not your problem. You have your own problems.” “Yeah... Anyway, I should let you get back to it. I need to sleep. And so do you.” Nari sighed. “I'll think about it...” “No, seriously. Sleep. You'll do better if you do. Can you promise me?” “...Okay.” “For real though?” “Yeah, yeah, I'm tired of this stupid library. It's so medieval.” “Ha, alright.” “So, you should do what you have to do too,” Nari said. “Kick out that Wano guy, give Dax a break but don't throw him out entirely, and kiss the twins for me before you go to bed.” Nathan chuckled a bit. “I will.” “Okay. I'm hanging up now.” “Haha, okay. I'll do the same.” “Bye.” “See you soon.” Nari hung up and sighed. He looked back at the library, considering hitting the books a little bit more, but the thought of having to deal with getting through security again was enough to turn him away for now. He got up and headed back to his hotel. At the very least, he had read a magic book about purification that he could tell Diederich about. Maybe it could be used to lower the blood alcohol levels of a drunk wizard. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to test it out when he got back.

#lore #Nari #Nathan #vampire #werewolf

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the-melting-world · 3 years

Text

Strength | Side B: “Chasing Dials”

Art by @ligiawrites

~ In which a secretive barhand brings in the new year…

The Trio Appearances: Kipling | Khleo | Ozy

Arcana LI appearances: Asra | Nadia | Lucio | Valdemar

Track Origins: “Chasing Dials” by Blanco White

Not sure if this is the right track? The full album can be found here: Strength

Khleo is Non-binary and uses she/they pronouns interchangeably

cw: alcohol, implications of vampirism, mentions of blood

~ 2.3k words

***

Fireworks broke and rained hot glitter over the southern border of Center City and Goldgrave. A handful of bartenders were off duty and on the move.

Khlee von Heine walked among them. She was the only one who hadn’t taken the time to change out of her work clothes. Her coworkers were loud, merry, and prone to recklessness as they stumbled from one pop-up bar crawl to the next.

“Another year,” Gabe managed to roar over the next round of fireworks. “Can you believe we fucking did it?” He took a deep swig from the communal growler. The night was far from young and the barhands had lost track over how many times they refilled it. Gabe reluctantly handed it off to the next coworker so they could say their piece.

Khlee hung back in order to stand under a wooden arch whose sign was eclipsed in dead vines. But Khleo had committed its message to memory years ago.

Der Biergarten.

The plot of land overgrown in weeds and other invasive species was still up for sale, to Khleo’s relief. Though it was out of the way on most of her delivery routes, Khleo did her best to stop by every now and then. Just to make sure no one had bought up the property.

The barhand checked to see that her coworkers were distracted as she stepped up and snatched a flyer with the lot info off the gate. She folded it up and quickly tucked it in her pocket before the arm of a good friend looped around her neck.

Basil leaned on Khleo as he pressed the convex surface of the growler against her sternum.

“Your turn.”

Khleo playfully shoved him off of her, but kept the growler. She took a sip. Basil and the other barhands chided her — she was supposed to make a toast.

“Fine. Fine.” Khleo held up the bottle. “To progress.”

They made a show of peering into the depths of the amber glass. “Maybe this year we’ll get lucky and actually make some, yeah?”

Someone snatched the growler out of their hand. Gwendolyn? Max? The streets were too dark to tell.

Khleo’s friends were off. They blended in with the city’s bar crawlers as they chased down the next booze cart. People wanted refills that night, not whatever Khleo was about to say next.

Later when Khleo had returned to her apartment, she traded her work clothes for something softer and more comfortable. Then she dug through the pocket of her discarded jacket and retrieved the folded up flyer.

It was a short walk from her kitchen to the bedroom. There was no bed frame or vanity, just three lumpy mattresses stacked on top of each other that she rescued from the alley when she first moved in.

The room was already small, but it felt even more congested thanks to the uneven piles of text, of which there two types — loose leaf recipes or pages ripped out of cookbooks and cheap serial novels with depictions of bejeweled dragons on the covers.

The only piece of real furniture around was an antique dresser, the drawers of which were broken and jutting out like crooked teeth.

All except one.

Khleo took a deep breath before crouching and using both hands to work the bottom drawer open. Like always, it did not come quietly, but with a little patience and a lot of swearing, Khleo managed to pull it out.

Most of the drawer’s contents belonged to her late adoptive father, Hans von Heine. However, it was an unmarked jar that Khleo reached for. She screwed it open and tucked the flyer for the piece of real estate between old flyers and newspaper clippings back when the garden used to host events. The jar had cash in it too. Whatever Khleo could spare went into the jar. Most of it came from what was left of her tips after paying rent, bills, and whoever she needed in order to keep certain people off her back and out of her business.

Khleo sealed the jar and did her best to ignore the tightness in her chest as she struggled to get the drawer to shut all the way. Once she had, she found that her breathing had become more than a little unsteady. It only got worse when she heard the fireworks going off outside.

Khleo shut their eyes and leaned their forehead against one of the crooked drawers, trying not to dwell too much on where they were this time last here. As it turned out, they were right here, drunk and crying at the foot of this very dresser.

Khleo curled up on their side. Yes, tonight their head was buzzing from the alcohol, somehow both heavy and light. Yes, the tears had found their way to the surface again. Khleo was never one to hold them in as long as they could find the space to spill them.

Things would be different this year, Khleo told themself. They would make sure of it this time.

***

(Lucio’s POV)

Lucio hated the smell of this place. Rotting and damp. It was hard to believe that they were still in Vesuvia.

“You always have such a sour expression on your face whenever I come to feed. Why so, my Count?”

The silky, sardonic voice belonged to Lucio’s host, Quaestor Valdemar.

“Don’t call me that,” Lucio snapped. He wanted to fold his arms and stifle some of the shivers running up his back, but he couldn’t as long as he was hooked up to Valdemar’s device.

“My apologies, Lucio,” Valdemar corrected themself coolly.

Another shiver climbed up Lucio’s neck as he bit back the urge to say, I don’t want to be called that either.

“Tell me, what plagues you?” They added with a chuckle. “Don’t you like your living arrangement?”

Ever since cutting a deal with the scientist turned demon, Lucio had been living out his days in the lowest cellar of the Lazaret. When he was first brought back from the Devil’s realm, he had been too weak to demand anything else. At the time, all he cared about was that he was alive and wouldn’t be devoured by the courtiers.

Lucio glanced at the tube looping around his forearm, its transparent pathways already inflated with his blood.

But at what cost?

Lucio grinded his teeth. It was too late to consider that now.

This was how it always went anyway. Lucio would be presented with an opportunity — a way to improve what he could not on his own. He would leap at it, no questions asked.

Why, after all this time, after all those treacherous dealings could he not bring himself to stop and think things through?

As the last of Valdemar’s toll left his body, Lucio started to wonder what his mother might say about all of this. But he’d rather eat another shitty bargain than go down that road right now.

“Your contribution to our arrangement hasn’t been as satisfying compared to when we first began.”

“What are you trying to say?” Despite his nasty tone, Lucio was grateful for the distraction. “My blood’s not tasty enough for you?”

“It used to be,” Valdemar said. “I’ll be honest with you, Lucio, I agreed to keep you around as an energy reserve primarily for that reason. The notion of devouring you in one sitting and having to share with my dear contemporaries was not nearly as attractive as the possibility of having your flesh to dine on whenever I needed to during this indefinite campaign in your current reality.”

Lucio hissed as Valdemar unceremoniously removed the needle from his vein. He wasn’t sure how to react to what he had just heard. Thanks to Valdemar’s mask, all Lucio could read from their expression was the growing crow’s feet at the corners of their blood red eyes.

“So?”

Valdemar applied a cotton wad to the puncture wound and dug it in with their thumb.

“Ow! Hey – Owie!” Lucio yelped.

“So, my Count,” they sweetly clarified as they kept up the pressure, “I need you to find a way to restore that vitality you once possessed. Technically, you’re in peak physical health. I don’t know if you’ve looked in the mirror lately, but the evidence of your tussle with the plague has all but disappeared from your eyes. Your hair has been growing…” they took a moment to scan their critical gaze over the pale blond patches clinging to Lucio’s jaw. “You could easily blend in with the citizens.”

Lucio swallowed. “B-blend in? Why the devil would I want to blend in?”

Valdemar made a less than human sound as they peeled back their mask and bared their needle-sharp teeth at the former Count.

“Right now you taste like a boneless, gutless, gill-infected inferior breed of mackerel. And I prefer to have rare, mercury-rich, vinegar-glazed bluefin tuna. Captivity is poisoning your blood. So I’m giving you permission to get out there in your beloved city and find a way to sweeten it.”

The Quaestor gave Lucio a not-so-gentle shove in his chair. They replaced their mask as they straightened up. The former Count’s eyes widened as he covered his hand over his arm. The last thing he wanted was to piss off Valdemar. But he didn’t know the first thing when it came to what they were asking him to do.

“What happens if I can’t, erm… make my blood taste better? What if spending time in the city doesn’t work?”

The Quaestor sighed, their emotions back in check. They were already half occupied with cleaning their instruments and storing the sacks of Lucio’s blood in a portable cooler for later.

“Then I will have no choice but to invite my courtier companions over for a nice potluck dinner.” They glanced up. The crow’s feet were back. “And you’ll be the forgettable appetizer that no one asked for.”

Later, when Valdemar was kind enough to row Lucio across the stretch of water to the mainland, they suggested, “You should find some people who are very healthy. Outside of captivity, fish are the most robust when they’re in competition with other capable anatomies.”

Lucio hugged what was left of his royal uniform – a tattered speckled cape – around his shoulders. He grumbled, “Would you, for fuck’s sake, stop comparing me to a fish, Quaestor?”

Unperturbed, Valdemar said, “We’ve arrived.”

Lucio lowered his hood and blinked out at the morning overcast sky. His top lip curled into a distinctive snarl as he recognized where they were.

“Not here. Anywhere but here.”

Valdemar gestured to the nearest dock. “Get out, Lucio.”

The former Count wanted to blot out the images of the slumped architecture and purge his nostrils of the stale watery stench.

“Not the Flooded District. I can’t stand this place. Can’t you see that it’s a failure that I don’t need reminding of?”

“Lucio, don’t be so foolish,” Valdemar said almost tenderly as they nudged him out of the boat. “The entire city is your failure. Much of which is hard to see. Oh, but it’s there. Now go on,” they said as if encouraging a child at the fairgrounds, “go find someone healthy. I’ll come to retrieve you in a fortnight’s time.”

Lucio couldn’t believe he was watching Valdemar row off into the mist. He tried to take a deep breath, but the air was so bad that he just ended up coughing.

Even though Valdemar had been correct about Lucio’s appearance, looking nothing like he did in the days when he was the Count, he still found himself trying to crowd off his features with his hood any time a resident passed him by on the floating, rickety streets. But to his relief, no one seemed to know or even care about who he was or might be.

As soon as Lucio relaxed his shoulders and began walking with more confidence, the inner walls of his stomach suddenly contracted. Then he remembered. He had just given blood. Lots of it. Usually, the Quaestor supplied him with something to eat, but this time they hadn’t.

“Damn them,” Lucio hissed. He cradled his abdomen like it was made of glass as he tried to make his way towards some kind of common plaza. He had no money, but perhaps he would be able to find a dumpster to rummage through.

He was passing by a narrow alley when he caught a glimpse of the impossible out of the corner of his eye.

A lion.

Its coat was creamy and short all over. Its size was nothing short of mythical.

Lucio was tempted to shout at the two idiots occupying the alley with this beast on the loose, but they seemed both aware of its presence and entirely calm about it.

One of them was slumped against the wall of the grimy building. Despite their threadbare attire and weary expression, they were smiling at the other.

“No, Khlee. Please don’t. You’ll be late for work.”

The person squatting before the first seemed to be focused on the task of sewing up what appeared to be rips in a heavy cloak. Even with their short jacket, Lucio could detect the shape of their arms. Their brown curls had enough volume to hide most of the details in their profile.

“Nah. I’m already late. This’ll only take a minute.”

There wasn’t much time to take in the rest of their features before the big cat stepped up, blocking Lucio’s view of them.

< Can I help you? >

Lucio ran. He nearly tripped over himself getting out of there so fast. But he didn’t go far. He gripped the edge of a building and poked his head out, waiting for the lioness and her human to emerge. When they finally did, Quaestor Valdemar’s words from earlier echoed in Lucio’s mind.

Go find someone healthy.

Well, the individual strolling confidently down the street with a full grown lion at their side was definitely looking like the healthy sort.

At the moment, Lucio wasn’t really thinking about what would happen to him if he failed Valdemar’s taste requirements.

Right now, his stomach was hurting.

If the body of this lion tamer was any indication, they knew where Lucio could find himself a meal.

#the arcana #khleo the barhand #arcana albums: strength #arcana albums #count lucio #lucio #lucio the arcana #quaestor valdemar #valdemar #valdemar the arcana #montag morgasson #the arcana fic #the arcana fanfic #the arcana fanfiction #my writing #cw alcohol #cw blood mention #cw vampirism

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lilydalexf · 4 years

Photo

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Dreamshaper

Dreamshaper has 54 stories at Gossamer. Her stories often feature Mulder and Scully exploring their feelings in ways you really, really wish you could’ve seen on the show. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Found in Memory, Just By Existing, Purpose, and Promise. Big thanks to Dreamshaper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm not at all surprised people are still reading X-Files fanfic! There's a deep catalogue of good and interesting fiction there, and the X-Files still has cultural significance. And of course there were the recent seasons to bring it back to mind. I think if you had asked me in 2000, I might not have supposed that it had this kind of staying power. So now I'm thinking of this interview as a time capsule--what will my answer be in 2040?

My own fic was not designed to have staying power. If anyone is reading it now, bless them, they are kind and patient. I would only recommend probably reading the first and last things I posted just to see what kind of growth is possible. The first time I ever posted fic, someone told me to never write again. I was a teenager. I was crushed but I went on writing anyway, and I worked hard to improve.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I think of two things. As for the show itself, I still think of Mulder/Scully as the ultimate in romance. I can still picture certain moments from the episodes, from the movie. I look for pairings with tension that reminds me of theirs--an almost-regency level of UST, but with a modern element of danger.

As for the fandom itself, I grew up in it. My entire online life and the core of how I participate in fandom was formed here. I was 17 or so when I started writing and posting MSR. I was 18 or 19 when I started meeting fans in real life. I was fortunate enough to fall in with people who were equal parts gracious and nerdy, and while my own nerdiness is innate, I remember and emulate the kindness which was shown to me.

I have an entire side post to this question about how strongly I disagree with the current age stratification in fandom--this idea of not interacting across artificial age divides is tragic to me.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!

(Posted by Lilydale on December 22, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #dreamshaper

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hayffiebird · 3 years

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Taste of Strawberries, chap. 25

Author’s note: BIG trigger warning for this chapter! Also, mega long author’s note (feel free to skip it.) The birth is SO close! I hope you enjoy reading about Hayffie’s “little ones” just as much as I have writing them. They’ve been in my life, on the written page, since 2013 (Good God, it’s really that long) so they almost feel like they’re my children just as much as Hayffie’s. I always get super invested in every story and character I write (can’t you tell? 😉) and I’m so proud of these two, as Effie would say. They’re so precious to me, you have no idea. The most precious of all the things I’ve created on Suzanne Collins’s playground. I love writing Haymitch and Effie but at the end of the day they’re borrowed characters, tied to existing source material to keep in mind. Amy and Ian on the other hand are 100% my own creation, from start to finish. That’s part reason why I’ve enjoyed writing them so much, from them rolling around in Effie’s tummy and all the way up to the age of six so far. To really get to use my writing muscles as best as I can, just like in Chapter 9, and only my imagination sets the limit.

What do you think about my names for them? Amandalyn “Amy” Trinket Abernathy and Ian Trinket Abernathy? Haymitch and Effie’s “gift worthy of love” and yeah I wanted to nudge in Effie’s last name too. :) They’re the first two original characters in ToS and “Amy” the absolute first, way back when I planned for Hayffie to have only one child. The name truly lives in my heart. It’s been my real life baby name since I was 18 years old and wrote a love story about a couple named Amanda and Samuel so that was a given from the get-go of ToS but I also wanted to add a little spice to the mix. Something with a sorta Capitol-y quirk at the end. And Amandalyn is a name Effie would lean toward, don’t you think? Lovely and unique but not too out there so Haymitch can eventually wrap his head around it and grow to love it. 😉 Originally, she started off as Amandaline rhymes with Hayffie twin, then became AmandaLYN cause it had a feistier ring to it and therefor fitted her personality better. It is INCREDIBLY near and dear to me, both her full name and pet name, and all I can hope for is that you’ll love reading about my Amy just as much as I have writing her for close to a decade now 😌 and the same for Ian of course. His work name was Cinna for a long time after a certain beloved THG stylist 😉, short for Cinnamon, before I re-named him after the one and only sir Ian McKellen simply because I admire him so much. So yeah, the Trinket Abernathy twins are both the product of years and years and years of hard effort, blood, sweat, joy and tears and about four drafts worth of re-writes. Like I’ve mentioned before: ToS is my heart and soul project. :) What do you think? And what are you hoping for in future chapters? Tell me in the comments, I’d love to hear your thoughts! And if you wanna support the story even further, leave a like and reblog! This suuper long author’s note is coming to a close, I promise, just one more thing: I cannot stress enough how much I treasure every single one of you! The hayffie fandom has been something of a safe haven for me during these past almost ten years. It’s so chockfull of talent and it’s a kind place most of the time, save a troll or two. And after a rather shaky childhood, kindness is the one trait I value most in life. #peetapeople 😉 And you know something funny: every time I feel like quitting this massive Godzilla-sized fic novel project because it feels too big or difficult or overwhelming to piece together it’s like you guys can hear my thoughts cause then one of you, either here, on FFNET or AO3 always always let me know ToS is precious to you. You’re all such gems and I’m very lucky and fortunate to have such devoted readers! I hope you’ll enjoy the chapter and take care! Chapter 25 Bottled up “Can you get the strawberries?” Effie stood by the stove, her hair in a messy pony tail. The elegant bow on her apron bobbed with each stir and the air filled with the rich scent of what could only be the high-quality 80 % cocoa chocolate shipped in from District 1. She smiled at him when he walked through the door. “It’s about time we had some chocolate covered strawberries, don’t you think? The babies really want it.” “Mm-hm, sure.” He poked his head in the fridge. “The babies.” Effie chuckled. Leaned against her free hand to ease some weight off the small of her back she moved the whisk in precise, counterclockwise circles. A lock of sandy hair fell over her eyes and she blew it away. “What do you say we call the children after supper? It’s been a while.” “Fine with me.” Bottles and jars and meal prep containers clinked under Haymitch’s fingertips. He scanned through shelf after shelf. “Where’d you say you put ‘em?” “They’re in there somewhere.” “Nope. We don’t have it.” “Pretty sure we do. You have to look closer, that’s all.” “I am. Can’t find ‘em.” “Very well. Get me the milk then. I’ll make us some hot cocoa.” He grabbed the three quarter filled bottle and kicked the fridge shut. “Don’t,” said Effie with a pointed look when he brought it to his lips. He poured the milk into the saucepan and watched the chocolate turn from dark brown to a creamy toffee color under Effie’s swift motions. Leaned back against the kitchen counter he brushed the stray lock behind her ear. “Look at you, princess. You’re just about ready to burst a seam.” “How observant,” said Effie. “And who’s to blame, I wonder?” Grinning, Haymitch pushed himself off of the kitchen counter and rested his hands against her hips. “You get much bigger than this, I won’t be able to reach all around.” “Thanks, darling,” said Effie and rolled her eyes. “That makes me feel so much better.” He chuckled under his breath but quickly composed himself. He gave her hips a soft caress. “I’m gonna miss you like this, sweetheart.” One of the babies nudged his fingertips. He moved along her sides until his hands rested flat against her stomach. That’s where they always ended up these days. A second kick soon followed. A firm little “You’re in the way” punch. Or not so little. Not anymore. He caressed the spot. “How’s Amy and Ian?” The question coaxed a smile out of Effie, like it always did. “Pretty good.” He dropped a kiss at the corner of her lips. She was warm and soft, like a sun-kissed peach. He nuzzled her cheek, dizzy by her scent mixed together with the chocolate. The babies stirred against his palm while he kissed their mother. “What are you up to?” Effie leaned into his lips. Rested her hand on top of his, enveloped in his bear hug. “I thought you said…” “Fuck what I said,” he mumbled into her skin. She smelled like flowers. Like the expensive perfume he used to kiss off her wrists and her neck, the hollow of her throat. A sigh escaped her and Haymitch pulled her nearer. Turned the heat off, moved the saucepan to a cooler spot and wrapped his arms back around her. Filled himself with her. “Eff,” he murmured, cheek against her cheek. “Effie…” “Yes, my sweet?” “Come with me to Twelve.” Her hands stilled at the sound of those words. Not a breath stirred. “I’m serious,” Haymitch mumbled before his courage failed. “We’re a family. You’re my family. We should be together. Away from here.” Effie’s dress rustled when she turned around, still wrapped in his arms. Their faces were so close he could count every eyelash, every freckle across her nose. His eyes dropped but Effie cupped his cheek. Held his gaze. She smiled. It lit up her face. Flooded even the darkest corners of his mind. “I thought you’d never ask.” Chocolate. That’s what her lips tasted like. Rich, dark, bitter sweet chocolate. He closed his eyes. Let himself be lost in it. Pulled the hair tie out and tangled his fingers in her fragrant, sandy waves. Who needed strawberries? This was just as good. “I thought you’d never ask.” With just a handful of words, Effie lifted an elephant off his chest and he could breathe again. Breathe without effort, for the first time in months. The twins stirred between them. He felt it against his own body. They tumbled about inside Effie like they too were eager over their future prospect. Home. We’re going home. “Ahh!” Haymitch’s eyes flew open. He jerked back at the sound of her cry. “What? What!?” Effie had doubled over, hands clutched against her stomach. “What’s wrong, Eff? What is it?” And then he saw the blood, seeping through her fingers. From an object deeply embedded in her body. Hands clutched around it she pulled it from herself. Long and jagged and dripping red. Bigger than his knife. Glass. It was glass. “Haymitch,” she gasped. The broken shard trembled on her palm, slipped through her fingers and shattered against the floor. “What have you done to us?” “No!” He caught her in his arms when her knees buckled from under her and cries of agony spilled from her lips. His palms sunk through her clothes, through her flesh like she was made out of butter. Blood erupted from her lips when he followed her to the floor, splattered his shirt and his throat. “No! No, no, no, no, no!” More and more blood filled his palm, soaked through the ripped fabric. “Effie! Oh, God, Effie!” And he caught sight of himself in the window. With a shriek he let go, pushed away from her with his feet, until his back was against the wall. His hands weren’t hands. His face wasn’t his face. The monster reflected back at him was nothing but broken pieces. Razor sharp pieces of glass that jutted out from him like hoarfrost on tree limbs, red from Effie’s blood. Like someone had shattered a thousand bottles and made a person out of it. Frantically, he clawed at himself, his face, his arms, his chest. To find flesh and bone underneath so he could help Effie. But the deeper he dug the more broken he got. That’s all he was. Broken bits and pieces. “Haymitch…” Effie lay on her side. Pierced and skewered bloody on every place he’d touched her. She clutched her tummy to try and stem the blood flow pooling underneath her. He crawled to her, on all fours. More broken glass fell from him. Like bloody stars in his wake. “Haymitch, help us…” “I can’t,” he sobbed. ”Please, help them …” Her eyes clung to his, begging him. Tears rolled down his cheeks and slit open paper-fine cuts where they landed until he pulled back, not taking the outstretched hand. The house gave a violent shake. The lamp over their heads swayed back and forth and bits and powder of ceiling plaster rained on them, covered them both like snow. Effie’s lips moved but he couldn’t make out the words. Laughter ripped through the house. Echoed from room to room, distant at first but coming closer, coming fom them. The light bulb exploded and plunged them into darkness. “Effie!” But she was gone. Gone like all the others. He was alone in the dark and nothingness, the smell of their blood. The roaring sound grew louder and louder. He clamped his hands over his ears but it filled his head. Filled the whole world until there was nothing else. Nothing but death and dark and laughter. Snow’s laugher. “No, no, please no!” “Haymitch! Shh, it’s OK. It’s OK!” “Effie!” “I’m here, Haymitch! It’s just a dream!” Pain shot up his leg. His feet all twisted. Trapped. He tossed and turned while the same strangled cry spilled over his lips. “Please, try and be still. You’re all tangled up.” The familiar voice jerked through him and he saw her at the foot of the bed. Her hand against his ankle. “Stay away!” His head slammed back against the headboard. “Don’t touch me! Don’t!” “Haymitch, it’s me!” She held her hands out, palms up. “Just me.” Panting for breath he stared into Effie’s face. He blinked through the sweat that poured into his eyes, heart pounding a hundred miles an hour. Tried to believe what his eyes were telling him. He opened his mouth but what came out was little more than a croak. “Eff,” he finally managed, throat like sandpaper. “It’s… are you OK?” She looked OK. Stood there in her usual house dress and pink slippers. Pale but unharmed. No blood. No shredded flesh. She took a first tentative step toward him. “You had a bad dream,” she said, keeping her voice low. “You’re all tangled up. I’m going to help you, OK?” His gaze dropped to his legs like he saw them for the first time. He’d managed to ensnare himself in the sheets, so tight and twisted they were like ropes. He flinched at her touch but Effie’s nimble fingers freed him in less than two minutes. It was more than enough time for Haymitch’s fright to give in to shame. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The sudden shift made his head throb and he just barely held in a groan. He rubbed his fingers over his eyes and they came out wet. Just sweat, he decided and wiped them on his undershirt, hot with shame. He felt creases on his cheek, that’s how tightly he’d pressed it into the pillow. “You’re not supposed to wake me when I’m like this,” he muttered under his breath, avoiding her gaze. “It’s not safe.” Effie’s lips pressed in concern. “You screamed so loudly I thought the windows might shatter.” He rubbed his arm over his damp, throbbing face, wishing her miles away. Effie pinched the back of his undershirt. The sudden touch made his heart leap in to his throat. “You’re soaking wet. You better change into something dry before you…” “Oh, God, Effie!” He looked up. “Why you always have to baby me? Save that for the kids, why don’t ya? Gimme a breather, for once in your life!” The outburst made his head pound twice as bad and he buried it against his palm. He tasted vomit at the back of his throat and breathed slowly so as not to ruin June and Annabel’s carpet. Effie didn’t touch him again. She only said, “I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” Haymitch sighed when the door closed behind her. Great. Like he didn’t feel crappy enough. Now he was a douche bag too, snarling at the mother of his children for no reason. With an enormous effort he lifted his head from his hands. Stared miserably at the palms. All jittery and dry and criss-crossed with cracks. But the normal kind. Effie was at him 24-7 about investing in some kind of lotion. Just a dream. Nothing else. I didn’t hurt them. Didn’t hurt any of them. Not yet, anyway. He needed a drink. Hell, he needed ten drinks! But first he must sort things out with Effie. It wasn’t her fault that he was a living, breathing sack of shit who couldn’t do anything right and she was always keener to accept an apology spoken to her without a booze breath. Haymitch heaved a sigh. Clenched his fists, gave them a violent shake. Ten drinks, what a joke! With just a couple of weeks left before the big big big day Effie played the pregnancy card for all it was worth. Whenever he tried to steal a moment for himself she came up with another and yet another task for him to do. Even when she napped it was never for long. Just when the coast seemed clear and he tiptoed out of the room, the babies made good use of their elbows and knees and jabbed their mother awake. If he didn’t know better he’d say all three of them were hell-bent of keeping him from the bottles. He hadn’t run this low since Ripper was in the stocks. He pulled himself up. Didn’t bother about the undershirt, clinging to him with sweat. He stared into his miserable reflection in the vanity mirror. Yellow and unsmiling. It was all he could do not to punch his fist through the glass. Right into his own ugly mug. You couldn’t blame her, really. Headaches or no headaches. Shakes or no shakes. Of course Effie wanted him home. She was due in like a minute. A bird twittered outside, greeting another baking hot day. They were a couple of days into August. Wildfire season, as pa called it. You wouldn’t know it around here, of course. Not with the sprinkler system going all day and all night, wasting water like they wasted everything else. Lord, his life for a good night’s sleep! Without the booze to really knock him dead, every shut-eye was hell on Earth; one chapter at a time. He didn’t even have the knife anymore. Effie saw to that as well. It would have happened sooner or later. He couldn’t clutch a knife while he slept, not with two little kids having the run of the place. So, better just suck it up and get used to it. Alright. Time to face the music. But as it turned out, there was no need. Reclined comfortably in the old rocking chair Effie looked up from the picture book just long enough to flash him a smile. All curtains were pulled, keeping the sun at bay. Like she knew all along, he would join her. Haymitch gave the couch cushion a few good punches before he lay down. He stretched his legs out with a grunt. Wiggled his toes, peeking through the holes in his socks. A bouquet of tulips stood on the mantelpiece. From their latest trip downtown. They were more pink than red but the sight was still enough to turn his stomach and he covered his eyes with his forearm. “’Can’t you sleep, Little Bear?’ asked Big Bear, putting down his bear book, which was just getting to the interesting part and patting over to the bed.’” Effie’s voice fluttered into his darkness. The rocking chair creaked with each backward movement as she read and completely ignored him. Effie Trinket had many annoying qualities but this wasn’t one of them. The way she always let him pretended like it rained after each and every episode. How many times was it now? In total? Oh, who the fuck knew. Too many, that’s for sure. Even without the screams and the trashing around, Effie knew his post-nightmare face far better than he was comfortable with. She was the one he used to wake up to after all. With the taxing chore of calming his pathetic ass again and again. But once the storm blew over she was always enough of a pal to go on with things like they never even happened. “’I’m scared,’ said Little Bear. ‘Why are you scared, Little Bear?’ asked Big Bear. ‘I don’t like the dark,’ said Little Bear. ‘What dark?’ said Big Bear. ‘The dark all around us.’” Lucky kids, he thought to himself. Who had a mother loving them so hard she read them bedtime stories before they were even born. If Ma ever read to him when he was little he was too young to remember and after Amadeus joined the family Haymitch took on the job anyway. That sort of thing just didn’t come natural to her. Pa would, but anyone working 12 hour shifts slept like the dead as soon as their head touched the pillow. What’s to read anyway? They didn’t own any books. Especially not children’s books. Bedtime stories passed by mouth in the Seam. Many of them scary or with some kind of dark lesson. Tara liked them. Amadeus not so much. Which was just another reason why Haymitch relied so on his imagination for those whispered stories after dark. He yawned but caught himself mid-way. No shut-eye! Without the alcohol as a free entrance ticket he’d pay for it dearly if he gave in to Effie’s sleep syrup voice. It was a couple of weeks after he moved in that he discovered this peculiar habit. He’d wandered the place as usual after everyone had gone to bed. With the hip-flask clasped in hand he went where his feet took him and wound up outside Effie’s room. Light spilled from under the door and he was still sober enough to hear the murmurs inside. First he passed it off as the usual cooing but a few moments in he realized she actually read them a bedtime story. He never heard of such a thing. Did all mothers read to their bellies or was it just Effie? It got him quite spell-bounded, to speak the truth. Maybe because he was caught so off-guard. The stories made no sense, most of them. Not to him. But it drew in him. Even if he couldn’t see her there was something so relaxing about the whole thing while he was anything but. So he remained rooted to the spot, soaking in it. Like if he just listened long enough some of it would pass on to him. It became his favorite pastime. Effie read to the unborn children in her belly and Haymitch listened at the door, quietly sipping his hip-flask. Wasn’t like he had someplace he needed to be. He could just as well drink here as anywhere else. Katniss needed a lot of convincing but Effie Trinket had quite the melodic voice. At least when her panties weren’t in a twist, which frankly wasn’t often. Not with someone like him nearby. But once she relaxed and her shit calmed down, that shrill, glass-cutter voice transformed. Turned warm and soulful, like … sitting-by-the-fire soft with just a hint of her trademark mischief that he loved so much. She couldn’t sing worth shit but she’d make a decent narrator. A great one, in fact. It was weird how she mastered it, with that ridiculous accent. But then again: Everything about Effie Trinket surprised him at one point. A couple of nights in, just when Haymitch started to know those stories by heart, Effie closed the book she was currently reading and said, loud and clear, “I can hear you breathing, Haymitch. Why don’t you come in? Keep us company.” From that moment on they spent almost every evening together. Reckoned he should take the chance and rest his knees if nothing else. He’d be walking around all night with an infant on his shoulder before he knew it. He had to get even more creative with his drinking routine as a result but fuck it. He needed those hours with her. With all three of them. “I’ve read to them since I was 10 weeks along,” Effie told him when he asked. “It promotes brain activity and language development. And it soothes them.” “Soothes them?” Haymitch frowned. “Against what? How troubled can they be in there?” It was hard to imagine a cozier, more comfy place for two babies, than inside Effie’s tummy. Safe and warm and fed and all cuddled up with each other. Honestly, they should stay where they were for as long as possible. Days fell into one another. Turned into weeks and months. Effie read and the more time that passed the more Haymitch suspected the person reaping most benefits from this arrangement weren’t the kids. A lamp-lit room, endless cups of chicken broth, Effie. It was definitely better than being alone. He welcomed all the distractions he could get. Any escape, no matter how brief, from his prison cell of a mind. No monkey business went on. Save that one little detour in between her sheets. Even if she’d wanted him to try something, Effie was so pregnant now he simply didn’t dare. They would all just end up in the birthing room and they were heading there fast enough without his help. Just thinking about it made him softer than a marshmallow, when nothing else worked. “Big Bear looked and he saw that the dark part of the cave was very dark. So he went to the lantern cupboard and took out the tiniest lantern that was there. Big Bear lit the tiniest lantern and put it next to Little Bear’s bed. ‘There’s a tiny light to keep you from being scared, Little Bear,’ said Big Bear.” Haymitch failed to stifle his next yawn. He knew this bear book word for word. A personal gemstone from Effie’s own childhood. Just the kind of story Amadeus loved. Talking animals. Good thing she read this one so often because the rest of her picture books were trippy as fuck, most of them. You needed sunglasses just to look at the pictures. Maybe if I talk to Sae. Yeah, with her brood of children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews and their children she was bound to have at least one decent kiddie book lying around… Lulled by Effie’s voice and the steady creak of the rocking chair Haymitch’s breathing turned deeper and slower. His arm slipped from his face, slumped over the edge of the sofa where the mid-morning dipped his fingers in sunlight. Haymitch’s slumber was never deep. Had to be drunk to get more than cat naps. Five minute here. Fifteen minutes there. Effie read. Oblivious, at first glance. But for each twitch and small jerk, every choked whimper she looked up from the page. Effie didn’t have to smell him or see him hungover to know how much or how little Haymitch drank. She could tell just by his sleep behavior. On a normal week, in a normal life, Haymitch got wasted beyond belief 9 sessions out of 10. And once dawn streaked the sky he was out like a blown candle. Dropped like a sack of potatoes on the couch, the floor, the kitchen table. More dead than asleep. But this deceitful, heart-breaking sleep pattern, you only ever saw it when his alcohol intake reached under a certain level. Or when things were particularly bad. So this wasn’t a first. Far from it. She knew those whimpers well. Long before they shared a bed together. Sounds Haymitch would never allow himself awake. Did any man? Little boy whimpers. That’s the word for it. A child lost in the woods, terrified of the creatures lurking in the dark. Haymitch with all his talk of “don’t come near me when I’m under or I’ll accidentally crush you like a beer can” didn’t know it but back when they were together and she heard those heart-clenching whimpers she always snuggled in close. Burrowed into him and he clutched her sometimes to the point of pain, a cry for help without words, and she welcomed it. Anything that might help. With his heart pounding into hers she smoothed back his hair and dropped little kisses to his face; his cheek, lips, his eyelids, the tip of his ear. He never allowed that kind of affection once fully awake. Not for long. Not after a nightmare. Sooner or later he always shrugged her off. As if showing yourself that raw and exposed was some kind of weakness. Something to be ashamed of. But when a nightmare had him in its clutches, kissing helped more often than not. Because the dream changed. Took a different direction. Not in a sexual way necessarily. It just calmed him. No one was less surprised than Effie. After decades of solitary confinement where most people he did meet treated him like a sticky pool of something vile you didn’t ever want to get on your clothes, let alone your skin, Haymitch Abernathy was starved for human closeness. He’d never admit it or might even declare he preferred it that way. But it was clear as day to anyone paying as close attention as she had, that it was all a lie. A lie told so many times he believed it himself. It was many months since she last did it now. The kissing bit. Didn’t seem appropriate. Besides, with this big and clumsy, ungraceful body she‘d wake him up anyway, long before she got the chance. No, the days when she could shield him from the dark with just her lips were long gone. Maybe I was wrong to take the knife away. Scary as it was, it served a purpose. Gave him a sense of safety. It was almost unfair that her own rest had gotten better with the pregnancy. More peaceful. She didn’t expect it to last but still. The night-terrors weren’t as fierce as before. And unlike Haymitch, she was never alone when she woke from them. Because she had their little ones. Carried them with her wherever she went. Back before Kane got her pregnant that disastrous drunken night, she never imagined finding such comfort within herself. Through her unborn child. A feeling she now re-lived, with her and Haymitch’s babies. The nine months she carried her Alex were different from this twin pregnancy in many ways, but the odd sense of peace, in the midst of turmoil, was the same. Amy and Ian and Alex before them, soothed her heart just by existing. She still got worried, of course. Worried sick quite literally sometimes, even this late in the pregnancy. But each and every time she felt them move it calmed her. It was hard to explain. She worried because of Amy and Ian and those same worries melted away - because of Amy and Ian. Haymitch on the other hand, had nobody. That’s what he thought anyway and she did what she could to distract him when his mind wandered in to dark places. Tried to pull his attention elsewhere, if only by asking him to warm them some milk or join her for a walk. In the end, it was little more than quick fixes. The knife was too but at least the latter helped him go back to sleep when nothing else could. Maybe it was unfair but the moment she saw the blood she just lost it. “Ease up, Eff. It’s just a paper cut,” he said at the sound of her shriek. He bent his arm to keep from dripping on the bed sheets, pulled open the nightstand drawer and pressed a hankie to his forearm. “Won’t even scar, this one. See, it’s already stopped.” No, Haymitch accidentally cutting himself coming out of a nightmare wasn’t a first either and her hormones played a part in her reaction no doubt but it was more than that. All of it. The whole scene. The blood stains on the crumpled fabric, the lone trickle down his tender skin and, most of all, Haymitch himself. Who just sat there, completely unfazed. Bored even. Like he didn’t even matter! It was their first real fight in months. Well, she fought. Haymitch had shown a remarkably annoying strength of character in the shouting department post-conception. Just a passing thing, hopefully. But his idiotic, pig-headed insistence on keeping the knife got her so worked up she had to sit down. It wasn’t so much Haymitch’s doing as the pregnancy’s. She got winded from literally nothing these days. But it scared the living daylight out of Haymitch. She never saw anyone turn paper-white so fast and he immediately caved. “Fine, alright, no knives!” he burst and pulled her to the bed. ”Shit, Eff, calm down before the kids come shootin’ out of you.” “I am calm!” Effie cussed as he lifted her legs up on to the mattress but between her labored breathing and reddened cheeks she wasn’t very convincing. Haymitch left only to re-appear with a glass of water and remained by her bedside until she drank the whole thing. She shot him a look when he set it back on the nightstand. “It’s good to know you care more about Amy and Ian than you do my sanity,” she muttered and swatted his helping hand when she rolled over to her side. With her breathing almost back to normal she eyed Haymitch, lips pursed in annoyance. “You were never this nice and attentive before I became the sacred vessel of your children. That’s a fact.” “Nah,” he said. “I care about you, sweetheart. Hopeless human beings need a little sympathy, don’t you think?” Effie tsked and caressed her belly in tired, exasperated motions. Her gaze flitted back to the slice on his forearm, smeared with dried blood. She winced and looked away. “Please do something about that cut. You’ll give yourself blood poisoning. Really, Haymitch in a normal household the first aid kit is for scrubbed knees or nose bleeds or kitchen mishaps. Not for victors wielding knifes on themselves when they sleep. One of these days you’re going to stab your own liver and then where will we be?” Haymitch shrugged. “Better off, I’d say. One less drunk in the world.” She could have shoved him. But he kept his word. The knife disappeared. Put in a drawer somewhere, just like during their bed sharing days. She noticed the change almost immediately but it wasn’t until just recently that it dawned on her what a big deal this was for Haymitch. All throughout his adult life, save those couple of weeks every year during the Games, he always clutched either one of two things to make himself fall asleep. The knife or her. He was really trying. In more than one way. Effie closed the book. The tenseness and shadow of bad dreams had once again receded from Haymitch’s face, without her help. She watched him in his hard-earned moment of rest. Her sweet, dear, infuriating Haymitch. Hers but not. She got used to having his hands on her all the time. His hands and his lips and whispered words against her tummy. But he hadn’t touched her, really touched her, since the night of the new moon. They still had moments. Nights when their eyes locked and the world disappeared. They were only humans after all and so woven together now, intertwined in each other’s lives, it was bound to happen. She blamed it on the pregnancy. On nature ushering her to be with the father of her children and oh, sweet mercy, those stormy, silver-gray eyes! They made her knees weaken. Always had, always would. Luckily, for all four of them, Haymitch still had the wits about him. Each time the door creaked ajar he closed it shut. It’s all for the best. Sweet as the journey would be the destination hadn’t changed. Her and Haymitch… they went nowhere. Just in circles. Spinning circles. Faster every time. Things would be good, great for a couple of weeks, couple of months and then the arguments would creep in. The bickering and snide comments. The frustration, the fights, the cries and yelling. Silence and heartache and separate bedrooms. Then, as sure as the dawn, they’d kiss and make up, only to repeat the pattern all over again. Only this time, two little innocents would be there for the ride. And that’s not going to happen under my watch. Amy and Ian would be born in a calm and peaceful environment. Not thrown in to an emotional twister because their idiot parents were at each other’s throat every other day. They couldn’t change the past or the baggage they both carried but they had control over this much. So stop hoping! She rested her hand on top of her belly. It helped her determination, even with Haymitch in front of her in all his tattered, run-down beauty. It will get better after the birth. Yes, once her body wasn’t raging with hormones, then she’d make peace with this life. A life without him. Besides and this was a comforting thought: They already were in each other’s lives. They always would be. In every way that mattered. And that was enough. It had to be enough. xXx Far, far away, in a different life it seemed, a phone rang. Out in the hallway. She unplugged the one in the living room weeks ago. Deep in thought it took Haymitch’s stirring to break the spell and Effie pulled herself to her feet. This was another promise broken. He didn’t want her to wake him during nightmares and he didn’t want her to answer the phone. Not since the hate call. “Just leave it to voicemail, you pregnant ol’ ox. It’s not even our number.” She closed the door quietly between herself and Haymitch and threw a glance at the caller-ID. A smile spread across her face. “Hey, love,” a merry voice greeted her on the other end. “Annabel.” She hadn’t heard from her friend in almost a week. “How’s everything in the Capitol? No babies yet, I hope?” “No,” said Effie. “Kicking and growing. You should see the sheer size of me! I’m so big I won’t fit on the bed soon.” “I’m sure you look lovely.” Effie smiled. “If only Haymitch was as thoughtful. According to him I look like Jupiter. Because I’m the biggest or oldest remains unclear.” They laughed together. “Things are OK, though,” she said. “I think the children are doing their very best to make it easy on Haymitch. No complications. Nothing to cause alarm. You know what he told them when he kissed my belly last night? ‘Thanks for giving me a break.’” “Well, I’m glad.” Annabel hesitated. “Effie…” She lapsed into silence. For such a long time, heat rose to Effie’s cheeks even before the question. “Have you decided anything yet? What to do once they’re born, I mean?” Effie wet her lips. Never take advantage of someone’s hospitality, mother’s voice rung in her mind. It was one of the top three rules Mrs. Trinket had lived by. Rules she hammered into her daughter’s head from as early as five or six. “I’m sorry, Annabel. We won’t impose much longer. I …” But Annabel didn’t let her finish. “That’s not what I meant, silly. There’s no timetable, like we said. Stay for as long as you need.” There was commotion on the other end. Men shouting and crackles on the line when Annabel walked out into the garden. “But what do you want? What does Haymitch want?” Odd she never saw it coming, this question. It was such a normal query. Annabel was in a relationship where they talked, actually talked, with each other. Not that she and Haymitch were in any kind of relationship. Right now she wasn’t sure what they were. What do I want? There only ever was one answer, wasn’t it? Something she’d known in her heart a long time, even if she never said it out loud. She wanted him to take her home. Back to the Victor’s Village. Back to District 12. Katniss, Peeta. Even his obnoxious pet geese. The quiet woods. The quiet town. Its people and the clear air, the open sky. The Meadow overflowing with dandelions in the spring. A place of warmth and calm and welcome where her and Haymitch’s children could grow up. But… But. How would that work exactly? In the long run. Say they carried out this plan and she made a home for herself and the twins in one of the empty houses of the Victor’s Village. What would Amy’s and Ian’s life be like? Haymitch still drank. He rationed the alcohol. Never once before had he gone this long without a proper boozing. He did it for the twins, of that she had no doubt. But how long could he keep that up? Haymitch said so himself. In the end, the drink always took him. Sooner or later his resolve would crumble. She’d seen this cycle far too many times to deny it. One day Amy and Ian’s father wouldn’t manage just a sip or two every few hours. That was the cold, hard reality. One that kept her up at night. It was all just a matter of when and how. Haymitch knew this better than anyone. That’s why the gates of the Victor’s Village remained locked to them. She was sure of it. He had so many moments. So many opportunities to bring it up and offer this solution. But he didn’t and he wouldn’t and maybe he was right. Perhaps a life in different parts of the country was the answer. Their golden middle way. If they split up the week. If Haymitch spent the first half of it on his own, drinking his fill someplace where Amy and Ian wouldn’t see it then maybe, just maybe he’d stay sober enough for the rest of the week and be a father to them. And the twins would only have their dad for a couple of days at a time. They won’t understand. How do you explain something like that to babies, to toddlers? What will we tell them when they ask? “Effie? You there?” She drew a breath. Didn’t want Annabel to hear her voice quiver. “We can’t go to District 12. As much as I’d love to, it’s… We can’t. Maybe one of the other districts. I keep thinking about Four or Seven or Nine. Finding a place outside the Capitol will be easier.” “Well,” said Annabel. “Maybe not.” Author’s note: What’d she mean by that, do you suppose? Find out in the next chapter! Did you enjoy the bear story, by the way? The quotes are from a real book. “Can’t you sleep Little Bear?” by Martin Waddell. I just moved into a new apartment and found it while packing. My baby sister was obsessed with it! If you can, try and not read it or google it just yet because the book will play a role throughout the rest of ToS. Thanks for reading, lovelies and I’ll see you in chapter 26!

#hayffie #hayffie twins #haymitch x effie #effie trinket #haymitch abernathy #amy trinket abernathy #ian trinket abernathy #the hunger games #post-mockingjay #myfanfiction #the capitol

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sunsetcurve · 4 years

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so...the last year has been rough. for everyone. but i’ve been lucky in a lot of ways, especially with the people in my life, and i wanted to take a second to thank some people on here. because genuinely, you guys mean so freaking much to me. i’ve had a lot of online friends in my life but none that feel so much like family. these are the people who have carried me through the last year, who’ve made me feel seen and heard and supported me in all my endeavors and just been wonderful to me all around. i love you guys, and happy new year <3

i’m about to get into it now. and i’ll try not to cry too much along the way.

@neshatriumphs nesha, when i say that you’re our fandom mom i mean that you’re my family, i mean that you’re my biggest supporter, my inspiration, my rock, the person who makes me want to be my best self, all the time. i can’t explain to you what your support has meant to me over the years. whether it’s leaving me incredibly kind notes on my fics that make me want to write more just for you, or sending me asks when you know i’m feeling down, or just making me laugh with your hilarious takes, you have always, always been there for me. you’re the toughest person i know and you make me want to keep pushing every day. you’re so incredibly talented; your ideas are just always stunning and inspired and despite being humble about it you’re amazing at everything you do. your art, your writing, your aesthetics, all of it. loeg and share-a-lair were just spectacular and such a show of how complex and original and smart your writing is. barring just your talent you’re also an inspiration in how passionate and kind and dedicated you are. you care for others everywhere you go. you come on here and constantly make me want to be a better person. it’s not just me, either—you’ve taken on the role of helping all of us in any way you can, and you just make us feel loved and supported and give us someone to always look up to. i love you. plain and simple, you’re my family, and i’m so, so grateful to have you in my life.

@juliesdahlias you know when you meet someone younger than you and you’re like how do they have this much talent in their body? and you can’t even be mad about it because you just want to root for them and you want good things for them and you think of them like a little sibling? that’s me around you all. the freaking. time. pearl, i’m constantly blown away by how smart and driven and passionate you are. you have so much talent to offer the world and i love seeing you thrive more than anything. you inspire me every freaking day; i mean, your tiara thief drabbles literally made me pull my fic out of my drafts for the first time in months. every time you post it’s something iconic and beautiful, whether its your fics or your edits or your headcanons. and not just that, but you’re so incredibly supportive of everything i put out there. like with ths, the way you latched on to it and are one of our biggest fans and made content for it literally as soon as we started!! that was amazing!! you’re just such an incredible person in every sense of the word; you’re talented and hilarious and kind and passionate and i love you so so much. i cannot wait to watch you do amazing things because i know you’re gonna be one of the greats. ily.

@ciara-knightly i can’t even put this into words. i’m sitting here trying to say it right and every time i start i just turn into “!!!!!!!!” cause i love you so much. i know i’ve said this before, but shona, you’re honestly like my older sister. this whole year of just, really getting to talk to you beyond tumblr has shown me how honestly kind, passionate, smart, and supportive you are. talking to you is one of my favorite things in the world, whether it’s rambling about tiara thief, or discussing feminism in media, or just getting life advice. you always know what to say to lead me in the right direction and reassure me that things are gonna be okay. i look up to you more than i can tell you; i’m constantly inspired by your talent and your drive. you’re endlessly supportive and you make me laugh all the time, and i hold literally every convo we have close to my chest because it means so much to me to just be able to have them with you. i’ll never be over the fact that you basically discovered jatp, or us talking and making predictions for weeks before it aired, or us plotting out the whole dystopia novel together—which, even though it didn’t really pan out, was such an amazing experience because i got to do it with you. and i absolutely scroll back through our convos on a regular basis to scream over our tiara thief headcanons. everything i’ve done with you has been incredibly fun and meaningful, so what i’m trying to say in this very long winded way is that i’m so, so glad i know you, and i can never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.

@bitchmilsky lizzie, i literally think of you like you’re my little sibling. my weird, crazy, hilarious, incredibly kind and supportive and creative and amazing little sibling. ever since i met you you’ve been nothing but fun and friendly and wonderful to me. your posts never fail to make me laugh and i love seeing whatever you’re up to, even if it’s video games that i understand nothing about. you have so many fun ideas and you’re so freely yourself, it’s honestly inspiring. the things you make are always adorable and every time we go live together and chat i always have so much fun, and talking and i just want to meet you in person so badly because i know we’d be an amazing, unstoppable duo and that you’d make me laugh until my sides hurt. i’m still waiting on that cross-country road trip. we could roll the windows down and belt our way through the entire hd musical soundtrack, and it would be epic. for real, though, you’re one of my favorite people ever, and i hope this year brings you nothing but fun and good things because that’s what you deserve. i’m sending you a million virtual hugs and also booty shorts that say poggers on the ass. i love you <3

@zackmartn i know i’m gonna start crying right now because i love you so much and i’m trying not to because i just did my makeup but dammit, nikki, i just love you so much. i remember when i first came on here and was afraid to talk to you because i was like “ohmygod she’s so cool she’s the king of this fandom she’s amazing” but i thank god that you reached out to me every day. i honestly can’t imagine my life without you; you’ve been such a presence in it for so long that you’re inseparable from it. even the times i’ve gone on hiatus i’ve been stalking your blog from a distance like “i just wanna know what she’s up to...”. you’re honestly like an older sister to me and you’re one of the people i admire the most; you’ve been through and continue to go through so much and yet every day you come on here and decide to be a freaking light to all of us, to make me smile, to support me literally endlessly. like, the amount of times you’ve driven me to near tears from your reviews of my writing is ridiculous. the freaking umana fan club?? the way ths is one of your top tags??? it’s just...insane and such a show of how boundless your support is. and that’s not even getting into how freaking talented you are!!! i stare at your gifsets all the time!! and your fics like....holy shit you literally created this whole universe that i’m so freaking invested in and is better than literally anything that canon could ever do, and i know i’m honestly terrible at responding to messages but i hope you know you never have to start holding back with me. most of the time when i get stuff you send i have to sit there and get my thoughts together and that takes forever, but i love love love reading it anyway. the way you get excited about the things you love is everything, it’s something that i really really love about you, and i hope you continue to keep that passion and love for everything. and i hope that this year brings you nothing but good things, because you deserve that more than anyone. i love you.

@willexs eliza, babe, i know we joke all the time that we were put on opposite sides of the ocean because we’d be too powerful if we were together but i really think it’s true. imagine us meeting. the universe just wouldn’t be able to handle it; it would implode. listen, you’re literally like my twin, my other half. we have so much in common that it’s honestly ridiculous. we operate on the same brainwave, and every time we talk i’m blown away by how easy it is and i honestly love it so much because i could not have picked a more talented and creative and fun person to work with. writing ths with you has literally been like...one of my favorite writing experiences ever. i can’t believe that it started on such a whim because it’s such an important part of my life now and getting to have you next to me while we figure this whole thing out is honestly the best part. it’s not just all the characters and dynamics we’ve created, it’s the fact that i can send you incoherent ramblings at ungodly hours and you’ll pick them apart, it’s the 3-hour phone calls to make playlists, it’s you always making me feel heard and inspiring me. it’s this like...excitement of building towards something amazing with someone i love. you understand me on this crazy and fundamental level, and sometimes it blows my mind how similar we are and how well you know me without us having even met. i feel like we’re the embodiment of “nobody gets me like you”. and i know i’ve said this before, but i really do think you make me a better writer. i love how you make me laugh, i love that you always have the best takes and i love how talented you are with your incredible adorable art and your fics and your gorgeous edits and i love that we egg each other on and hype each other up. i love that, despite being on opposite sides of the ocean, we’re still best friends. and i love you <3

@cactus-con lou!!!!!! i literally just...ahh i love you so much!! i know i’ve said this before but you were the first person i talked to in this fandom, and you made me feel so freaking welcome. and that has never changed. talking to you is so easy and natural, and you make me feel loved and heard all the time. i love getting to share stuff with you because you always always always hype me up. not just that but like...your talent?? literally unmatched!!! you’re amazing at everything you do it’s ridiculous. i love love love all your artwork, i could stare at it literally all day. you have so much talent and i literally cannot wait to watch you do such great things with it. i just...you’re such a wonderful person to everyone around you. you spread all this love and support and kindness and i think you’re one of the most genuine people i know and i’m so so glad i know you. i hope this year treats you so well because you deserve nothing but good things. i love you. <3

@owenjoyners where do i even start?? brooke, you’re like my other twin. i know i’ve said this before but it’s literally insane to me that we’ve known each other for less than a year because it feels like i’ve known you my whole life. you are such an incredible freaking person. you’re funny and you’re kind and you’re talented and you make me smile every damn day. i love getting post notifs from you because i swear to god i light up every time. your gifsets are always gorgeous, and i’ve watched you learn and improve and you’ve gotten so good, it makes me so happy every time. your art??? you say you’re just starting out but i can’t even tell you how much i love it. your fics!!! you’re good at everything and it’s honestly ridiculous. and it’s not even about your consistently amazing posts, i also just...i love talking to you more than anything, even if we’re just simping over owen together. you make me laugh all the time and you always hype me up; you’ve let me ramble about my fics and helped me get my ideas together, you’ve talked stupid life stuff like school and college with me, and you’ve given me someone to go to whenever i need it. i think of you as one of my best friends and i can’t get over how fast we clicked or how easy it is to talk to you. i need you to come visit me so i can give you so many hugs and we can have a sleepover and talk for literally hours on end. in the meantime, we need to call again sometime because that was honestly so much fun. i love you with all my heart.

and some people i want to say thank you to, because even though we don’t talk as often as i’d like you’re still amazing, and you make me smile all the time, and i love seeing you on my dash or in my notes: @taylorswiftrulestheworld @onplanetmars @dr-rigatoni @swellviews-finest @symphonic-concert @molinasmercer

#nikki tag! 💛#lizzie tag! 💜#nobody gets me like you tag ❣️#nesha tag! 💟#brooke tag! 💙#lou tag! 💚#shona tag! 🌟#heather tag!#otter tag!#jamie tag!#k tag!#faith tag!#monisha tag!#pearl tag! 💖

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fantranslatorbychoice · 4 years

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Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi Volume 6 Intermission 3 - Kasuga and O-ryo

T/N: Yep, it’s a double premiere guys, I hope you all enjoy. =)

As always, if you like this translation, you can heart it, share the link, reblog, I just respectfully ask that DO NOT REPOST ELSEWHERE. This is my contribution to the scant English content of this fandom, and I worked really hard to finish this thing, it’s not like I just copy-pasted everything. I even had to build the kanji in Jisho one by one. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.You can rave about this, rant about this, reply, etc. but if possible please link back to this page. If you’re unsure how to do that, just copy the web address of this page. If you’re on a blogsite just insert the web address as a hyperlink as a link back to here. Honestly if this light novel was officially-published in English, I wouldn’t even be doing this right now... And if it did, I’d take this offline to support the publishers and Yuuma-sensei. Creators support creators, is what I believe in. I’ll prolly do 1-5 once 6-10 has been done, or however long I can manage to translate the raw texts, it can take a toll at times. As previously-mentioned in earlier chapters, if you stumbled upon this one, the two seasons of the anime covered volumes 1-5, so other than the extra details, you didn’t miss much stuff.

No spoilers lol

P261 "Hmph. You're the newly-hired kid? Really, you're named Kasuga? Aren't you a stumpy little tanuki-girl? I am O-ryo, the future Wakaokami. I'll train you under me, and I'll be sure to drill the job of being a waitress into your head."

I remember well, the day that I first met O-ryo sama. I am Kasuga, a Bunmon Tanuki, while still a child was chased off from my home by my Hachiyo Baba-sama to experience the outside world, and along with my uncle Chiaki who also has nowhere else to go, we inquired in, and started working in Tenjin-ya. It was that first day. That person who called me stumpy, has hair and skin as white as snow, it was the conspicuously beautiful snow lady. Her personality is of someone who hates losing. She was a selfish Sempai, but has an indomitable and strong willpower to rise to the top, and I thought that surprisingly, I have come to like this person. As such, in order to gain her dream position of Wakaokami, she exerted herself no matter what it took. P262 A woman who fights her battles to win. I came to her side and I recorded her heroic battles, and I wrote about it in my diary.

"Hey.... Hey, why are you asking something while falling asleep, Kasuga-kun, HEY!" "Whaaaa~" In the middle of talking about something regarding a Hachiyo's marriage at great length, sitting on my heels I was nodding off to sleep. Since early morning I have been with Aoi-chan, and I have been going about here and there. I was feeling confident. I was dozing off in front of Byakuya-sama. Is Byakuya-sama angry or is he surprised? "Good grief. You're a reliable and shrewd girl girl, and I think that it's beyond expectations that you're going to get married to a Hachiyo... yet I am worried that they'll find faults on you. That is a position that has many enemies, do you understand? "Yeah, I get it. I have watched Aoi-chan for a long time. But Aoi-chan is awesome... Even though she's in a disadvantage, she was aware of her own strengths. Furthermore, in Tenjin-ya, when Aoi-chan gets married to Odanna-sama, isn't there anyone who grumbles about it?" "Hmmm. in that case, isn't that a problem? Because nobody's complaining, probably there's a group that's P263 thinking about rubbing her out of existence." "That point, I am fine with that. I plan to not make enemies with my demeanor, an incomptetent person making a blunder. Well, at any rate, from the very start I have been incompetent." "..." Byakuya-sama narrowed his eyes, and with a snap hit the corner of his mouth with his fan. I thought that he was going to say something but, he just scolded me and released me after saying "You can go now" . Wahh, after standing up from sitting on my feet, they fell asleep and started tingling painfully... Holding the Maneki-neko** coin bank, I planned to go back to Yugao. Along the way, the waitresses looked over here, and started gossiping and whispering to each other. Up until now the friends that were calling me in carefree voices, and the sempai that used to fiddle with and pushed me around, now they pass sideways, and bow their heads subserviently, and flees anywhere. Oh well, I could understand why they became like that but... I come in contact with the management staff that were like Shizuna-chan and they are normally composed, but I'm a normal girl, aren't I? I feel like I'm a sore thumb sicking out. "Kasuga, Kasuga" "...Chiaki" From the other side of the hallway, peeping over here looking worried, it was my uncle, the tanuki. T/N: Maneki-neko, the beckoning cat, famously known for bringing in luck. It's said that it was originally named after a cat that waved to a monk to go inside a shrine and the monk almost got struck by lightning or something, so it was a lucky omen. P264 He approached while calling for me. "What is it, from now onwards I'm helping out at Yugao." "It's not that, you were called for by Byakuya-sama, and I got worried somewhat." "It's nothing. It's just that I'm developing a souvenir product with Aoi-chan." "Why you, aren't you scowling at me?" "Why, my relative shouldn't speak about me flippantly." He isn't necessarily overprotective and he wasn't saying anything like that, but ever since the old days Chiaki has been worrying about me. He's just a nice and charming person who took care of me, and he always looks after those that are just like me. Though I'm already fine, even at this age he still worries about me... "Chiaki aren't you staying behind here in Tenjin-ya?" "Yep. I'll continue working here. Even though I was thinking of coming along with you." "It's fine, it's nothing. I've always been taken care of by uncle, I cannot function properly being a Hachiyo's wife." "...Kasuga" His eyes gloomily welling up, holding down the corner of his eyes, Chiaki went "That tiny Kasuga has grown to be praise-worthy" "Ahhh stop it already, don't be gloomy.. Get over it." Shh... Uncle you're annoying. P265 While being paid extra care, I could feel myself fading away. Our relationship, even though we are family, here we cannot become too overly-familiar. The love that tanuki give to each other are the strongest among Ayakashi, as such they aren't entrusted to to other people, which makes tanuki unaware about so many things such as getting close to and connecting with strangers. Those people, now matter how much we studied them, we couldn't find them... With regards to those, I thought I learned those in Tenjin-ya.

"Oh.." In front of the passageway that connects the door to Yugao, there is someone who is sneakily peeping in. Isn't that... "O-ryo sama, what are you doing over that place?" "Kyaaa!" O-ryo sama jumped up suprised. With a sluggish expression, she slowly looked back. Opening her mouth as if about to talk, hesitatingly, she made a weird face by sticking her lower lip out. "H-hmph." In the end, O-ryo sama took her leave without saying anything. P266 I slightly tugged on O-ryo sama's sleeves. "What now?" O-ryo sama icily stared down at me with that severe gaze. Oh well, I've been used to that gaze. "Uhm, I believe so, that O-ryo sama will likely aim to be Wakaokami again." ".... what?" "Within Tenjin-ya, there's something that only O-ryo sama can surely do." Pulling my hands immediately from the hem, I madly dashed towards the inner garden where Yugao was. The O-ryo sama who was aiming to be Wakaokami. And the one who made her dream come true, the O-ryo sama that became Wakaokami. To me, O-ryo sama is dazzling, despite the many enemies she makes, being hated by her colleagues, being gutsy and only wants to rise up into the world. The one I adored. After doing so many different things, O-ryo sama eventually became demoted from Wakaokami, and yet... When O-ryo sama becomes Wakaokami once again. Truly, I support that from the sidelines..

End of Intermission 3, Volume 6. Previous - Chapter 8 Next - Chapter 9

References:

Wonderful site for the youkai references

Other stuff I used to do this: Kodansha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary (you can buy here, I’m not sponsored btw). I was about to buy the older edition but then the newer one came out 2013 so I bought that instead. Worth buying since I was able to find nearly all of the words I needed just by stroke pattern alone.

Merriam-Webster's Japanese-English Dictionary (the red-covered 1996 version is apparently out of print right now). This is what I have been using for a very long time, I bought it when I was still a fetus (yes I am old so what lol), and after so many years, when compared to newer editions, I still prefer this one since its entirety is Japanese-English, the English to Japanese gloss are just 16 pages tops, so you get more Japanese words for your buck. But that’s just my opinion, maybe other people prefer the Jap-En x En-Jap IDEK.

Basic online dictionary, Jisho. Knowledge of verb conjugations and other words are necessary since not all have entries.

If you can read Japanese, you can buy the whole set in Amazon Japan, they’re shipping worldwide now, I think.

#kakuriyo no yadomeshi #kakuriyo no yadomeshi light novel #kakuriyo no yadomeshi english translation #kakuriyo no yadomeshi english fan translation #kakuriyo no yadomeshi light novel english #kakuriyo no yadomeshi volume 6 intermission 3

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cherryrogers · 4 years

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when dusk falls {1}

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS

pairing: bucky barnes x reader | royal au

warnings: mentions of war, death, rape + forced marriage. pure angst tbh.

summary: One fateful afternoon, your blissful life as the beloved princess of Taria comes to a sudden halt.

a/n: ok so i am very excited for this fic. more excited than i’ve ever been to write a fic ever, i really hope you guys like it !! it’ll likely be a slow burn, and i’m gonna try so hard to do weekly updates (unheard of from me i know !!) anyway please enjoy and any feedback is appreciated !!

series masterlist

The Kingdom of Taria was said to be the most beautiful place on the planet. A verdant location, rich with greenery from north to south. Known as the planet’s garden, visitors would travel for days overseas simply to inhale the fresh scent of the crisp air upon arriving within Taria’s borders. The civilians were lovely, always smiling and willing to offer tours of the gardens and markets. And the monarchs — the most loved the world had ever seen. They lived in a fabulous palace in the centre of the green land, one of the oldest buildings to exist in Taria. The palace front garden was free for anyone to roam, a place where the King and Queen could be seen waving from their balcony, broad smiles covering their lips.

And the Princess; she was the kingdom’s gem.

Adored by the people of Taria and those of allied kingdoms, you made it your mission to be less of a princess to your people, and more of a friend. You played with the children in the palace garden on sunny afternoons, went to tea with the women who sold baked goods at the markets, helped their sons with schoolwork when you had time to spare — there wasn’t a single name you could put to a face. You felt so free, so lucky to be engaged with the people that made Taria as wonderful as it was. You didn’t even need personal guards, not when there wasn’t a soul in the kingdom that wanted to hurt a hair on your head.

The life you were so grateful to live, that you cherished so close to your heart — it was terrifying how easily it was stripped from you. How easily Hydra ripped you away from the golden dream that it was.

You’d been hiding in your library, laid out on a plush beige couch, the skirt of your royal blue dress spilling over the edge, flipping through the pages of a thick, hardback mystery novel. It’d been gifted to you by Sharon, your lady-in-waiting and best friend before that. She’d left you alone in the library momentarily while running to bring you both a steaming cup of chamomile tea; an essential when reading, she’d insisted. If you weren’t so caught up in your book, perhaps you would’ve noticed Sharon had been gone for nearly ten minutes. It was only when the sound of commotion erupted from behind the large doors of the library that your eyes finally flickered up, and when they did, your friend was suddenly bursting through the doors, a frightened expression on her face.

“Sharon, what’s wrong?” You’d slipped your bookmark between the pages of your novel before placing it at your feet.

The blonde rushed towards you, taking your hand and tugging you up from the couch. “We must go.”

Your face contorted in confusion, but Sharon didn’t care to explain as she snatched you away from the centre of the grand room, making a beeline to the back door of the room that led into your personal garden. Her hand was tight like a vice around your wrist, pressing your bracelets uncomfortably into your skin.

“What was with the yelling outside?” You questioned breathlessly, struggling to keep up with her pace as she pushed open the glass garden doors. “And why— my gosh, why are we running?”

Winding through the plethora of brilliantly coloured roses and tulips, you shrieked as you closely avoided tripping over your own feet, bare and aching from the gravel of the pavement between the square plots of flowers sticking to your soles. Everything was happening so fast, even the colours of the garden were blending together as you tried to figure out what could’ve been going on.

Sharon’s hand fleetingly let go of your wrist as you steadied yourself, and before she could clasp it back in her grip, you ripped it out of her reach.

She narrowed her eyes. “_____, we don’t have time—”

“Tell me what’s going on.” You folded your arms over your chest, the waver in your voice telling Sharon that you needed to know then and there, your nerves beginning to build more with each passing second.

The woman was about to object, but since you weren’t aware of the gravity of the situation, she decided telling you may have been a better option — whatever got you away from the palace the as soon as possible. Sighing quickly, she held your upper arms in urgency. “It’s Hydra, they’re here. Here for you.”

In that moment, you swore your heart had never dropped so low in your stomach. “For me? What— What do they want with me?”

“I don’t know; as soon as I heard your name, I ran to find you. They’re searching the palace for you right now, _____, we need to get to the stables and leave before they find you.”

She took your hand in hers, ready to make a run for it, but you didn’t budge. Mouth hung open in shock, you were paralysed on the spot.

The Kingdom of Hydra was a dark place. Plagued with freezing temperatures and harsh blizzards, the majority kept far away from it. The effects of a long dictatorship had set in over the decades, making it the complete opposite of Taria. King Alexander called all the shots, passed laws that benefited him, denied laws that benefited the public. Crime was at an all time high; women raped every day, markets trashed and robbed, murders around every corner — the King didn’t bat an eye. Nobody did. The only reason people stayed was because they had to. It was against the law to migrate unless the circumstances were exceptional, but realistically they’d never be severe enough for the King to lose tax money over.

Attempts at rebellions had spiked over the years, usually only consisting of not even one hundred civilians wanting to fight the system. The King’s father, who occupied the throne before him, was killed by a rebel when the castle was attacked by hundreds of men wielding pitchforks. Once Alexander became king, he threatened that any civilian who dared to rebel against the monarchy would be sentenced to death without question. While there were still quieter rebel forces waiting for their moment to strike, most were ultimately too fearful to take physical action, and they were right in feeling so.

Hydra was a brutal place; living there was a life sentence that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. But it seemed like soon, you’d be serving that miserable time yourself.

Only when you felt a warm hand press to your cheek did you snap out of your fear, glossy eyes meeting the deep brown ones of your friend. “You’ll be okay. I’m going to get you to safety, but I can only do that if we leave now.”

Forcing your fear down with a painful gulp, you nodded hurriedly. The blonde’s lips curled slightly in reassurance, before she took your hand eagerly and headed straight for the tall, cream garden gate leading out to the stables.

She quickly explained the route you’d take; travel west through the Goldwater village, borrow a rowboat from the docks, and sail over the Emerald Sea to the Swari Island; a small but resourceful community not ruled over by a monarchy, but had offered hospitality to the royals of Taria if they ever needed it. They’d know who you were when you arrived there, and because it was such an independent island, Hydra likely didn’t even know it existed. If they did, they probably would’ve attacked and taken over the place a long time ago.

The plan sounded hopeful, and your nerves had actually began to simmer once you were close enough to the gate for Sharon to shift the heavy metal lock. But when a worried voice called out from behind you, her movement was paused, the lock only being half pulled.

Steven — your father’s valet — stood tall in the doorway to the library, golden locks and beard seeming even lighter with the sun beaming down onto him. But the look on his face was anything but light; thick brows pinched and lips curled into a frown, he waved for the two of you to return.

“There are soldiers behind that gate,” He called. “You can’t reach the stables.”

You turned to Sharon with a fearful expression; she kept a tight hold on your hand, letting go of the gate to respond to Steve. She remained calm, but at the foiling of her plan, her demeanour had visibly changed. “Then what are we to do? I won’t let Hydra take her, Steve.”

His face fell even further, a hand coming to clutch at the sword on his hip as he jogged towards the two of you. Blue eyes set on you, he spoke with sorrow. “I’m afraid that they’re not going to leave without you, Princess.”

Your friend scoffed, shooting the valet a glare. “And why is that?”

Steve didn’t reply, an apologetic glint in his eyes as they stayed on you. You held his eye contact, shaking your head in disbelief. What did he mean they weren’t leaving without you? It wasn’t like Steve to give up so easily, especially when it came to your safety. He had a duty to your father, to ensure your protection before his at all costs. But Hydra didn’t care for duties and loyalty — they didn’t care for compromise. What they wanted, they got. And they wanted you.

“Steven, what do they want with _____?” Sharon asked again, this time more aggressive with her tone, but her hard exterior was beginning to crumble.

Like you, she knew Steve to be confident, determined. He’d been like that even at the age of thirteen when she’d befriended him — the scrawny blond boy that didn’t have the patience to read books or plant seeds in the back garden like the other kids she neighboured with, instead always running around on the dirt roads using long, pointy sticks as swords to battle with an imaginary opponent.

Originally from the war-torn Kingdom of Lidor, she migrated with her aunt after her parents were caught in the centre of a Hydra attack on their village. Sharon was staying at her Aunt Peggy’s for the weekend when it happened, and as soon as it did, Peggy wasn’t risking her young niece being killed along with her brother and sister-in-law if they dared attack again, which was likely inevitable.

That was the scary thing about Hydra; they had the absolute power to ruin everything in their wake.

Sharon met you when she was sixteen; she was wandering the beautiful palace garden with her aunt when you’d approached the two of them, introducing yourself with a kind smile. It was the first time they’d been near the palace, their new village being in a more remote area of Taria, and preferring to keep to themselves while recovering from the tragedy back home. You ended up clicking with her straight away, easily being drawn to her fiery attitude and quick wit. As you got closer, you became her shoulder to cry on when she’d opened up about her parents and her life during the war at home, learning that Lidor was fighting on their own against the powerful forces of Hydra, and had been three years — Hydra had a certain way of keeping their harmful affairs quiet.

Later that week, you informed your father of her kingdom’s situation, and after a discussion with Taria’s knights and the leaders of your allies, cavalries upon cavalries shipped out to Lidor to rid the place of Hydra’s men. The war came to an end months later, and you’ll never forget the relief and joy on Sharon’s face once you’d let her know that her home could soon begin to recover.

She’d also spoken of needing a job, and after a short conversation with your parents, they approved of her being able to fill the spot of your lady-in-waiting. Sharon was hesitant to take the role, as it meant leaving her old aunt to live alone in their home miles away from the palace, but you assured her she could visit Peggy whenever she wanted, and that the role wasn’t so much a servant job — more like a professional best friend.

Steve, then eighteen, was introduced to you when you ventured out to meet Sharon’s aunt at her home. Unlike him in his childhood, he’d grown incredibly tall and broad, large biceps and muscular thighs easily filling out his clothing. Purely kindness and charisma, Steve seemed like a man your father would’ve adored. One day, you brought the two of them down to the palace for dinner in the evening. Steve was obviously out of his comfort zone; he’d never once imagined he’d ever come to be around so many royals. Like you’d guessed, he had your father clutching his stomach with laughter, and he’d deeply admired the blond’s courageous spirit when he’d expressed his desire for a job where he could protect people who needed it.

At the end of the night, the King pulled him aside and told him that if he was interested in being his valet, the job was unmistakably his. Of course, Steve accepted it without question. You’d always remember the first time he held a real sword; it was like witnessing a child during a sugar rush.

Since that day, both Sharon and Steven had never been too far away, always around to keep you company. It was a good change to have good friends living in such close proximity. Your life had never been better, safer.

And now, in their presence, you’d never felt more afraid.

Before Sharon could force an answer out of the valet, a raspy, smug voice sounding from where Steve had been stood only moments ago in the library doorway caught the attention of the three of you.

Tilting your head to look past Steve, your jaw tightened at the sight of a dark-haired man, dressed in dark clothes and scruffy boots — a clear juxtaposition among the vibrant garden. Upon his lips, a too-satisfied smirk, and on the left metal shoulder piece shielding his thin tunic, the image of a skull with tentacles coming from the mouth clear as day — the symbol of Hydra.

“I must say, Princess, you have a wonderful palace here.” He patronised, stepping into the garden gesturing to the enormous building behind him.

It was then you noticed the four soldiers that’d followed him out, expressions completely vacant, staring straight ahead as if they hadn’t just infiltrated the royal palace. Their uniform was similar to brocks, except the skull symbol was replaced by a large red star.

Steve pushed you behind him protectively; your grip remained tight on your friend’s hand. “You have no business coming to Taria without speaking the King first. This wasn’t part of the agreement.”

Agreement? Hydra had no business in Taria at all; none that you knew of, anyway.

The man shrugged carelessly. “The King wants the Princess in Hydra now; circumstances have changed.”

“Circumstances have changed how?” Steve challenged, glowering at him.

Frustration bubbled in your chest. You didn’t understand what Hydra wanted with you, and you definitely weren’t aware that there was an agreement between Taria and Hydra. Your kingdom vowed a long time ago never to make deals with the devil, the devil being a kingdom ruined by dictatorship and power-hungry men.

Sharon uttered your name cautiously as you removed your hand from hers, stepping forward to lower Steve’s raised arm, no longer shielded from the man who’d seemingly been sent to collect you.

“Tell me what’s going on,” You spoke up confidently, shoving down the anxiety threatening to appear in your voice. “What agreement do you speak of?”

The man’s sick smile widened upon hearing your voice. Looking over his shoulder, he gave a nod to one of the docile soldiers who left his side on his signal, before turning back to you. “I could tell you, Princess — but I think it’s better that you hear it from the King and Queen.”

Your eyes widened; behind the man, you watched as four soldiers escorted your parents into the garden. They appeared tired, as if they’d put up a fight. Wouldn’t any loving parent to keep their child safe? Of course, Hydra had likely brought enough infantry to keep control of the situation. Your knights were strong, but scarce compared to the large army Hydra had built over the years.

“Go on,” The man coaxed, stepping off to the side so that you were eyeing your parents directly. “Ask them.”

Biting your lower lip, you pushed back the confused and angry tears threatening to spill down your cheeks. “Father, Mother — what’s going on?”

A stray tear trickled down your mother’s face, her eyes never leaving the ground. She was petrified. Exhaling deeply, your father took her hand gently, before shooting you an apologetic look. “This was never meant to happen, _____. I was going to renegotiate the agreement…”

His pleads to show himself in a better light fell flat, futile — everyone knew that you were leaving with Hydra one way or another. You brought your brows together, silently asking him to just tell you the truth. Another heavy sigh, and he came clean.

“One day, when your mother was pregnant with you, her and I rented a sailboat from the east docks. We used to sail along the Heartlen Ocean all the time when we were young; she was due to give birth in two weeks, and since she’d be palace-bound upon your birth, I decided that one more sail before the big day wouldn’t hurt.”

Typically, most who chose to go sailing took boats from the west docks to travel the Emerald Sea. They were easier to access, less remote than the east docks hidden by the thick woodland separating them from Taria’s centre. But if you recalled correctly, that’s why your parents were so fond of the Heartlen Ocean — it was quiet, the whole ocean was theirs to sail freely.

“We’d been out for an hour or two, ignoring our compass and the sky growing dark. We had no idea how far out from Taria we were. Your mother suggested that we head back, but… but before we could, she went into—”

“Can we speed this up, Your Highness?” The insufferable man snarked, earning himself a piercing glare from your father, but he obeyed nonetheless.

His eyes landed back on yours, filling with regret once more. “She went into labour on the boat. We were so far out that going back to Taria wasn’t an option. So, we sailed to the nearest land we could find, which turned out to be Hydra. We had no choice but to ask for their help, and— and they gave it to us, but with a cost. The King, he refused to help your mother unless we made a deal, that deal being that if she gave birth to a baby girl… she was to marry his newborn son once he‘d turned twenty-one.”

You could have fainted on the spot. Steve offered his arm to you, which you took quickly, holding on as if the ground was turning to quicksand. If that meant the ground would’ve swallowed you up and been your escape from the nightmare-come-true that was happening before you, you wished the ground were quicksand.

Tears yet again glazing your eyes, you shook your head. “I— I don’t know what to say.”

Meekly, your mother lifted her head, broken eyes meeting yours almost painfully. “We had no choice, my dear.”

I know. You wanted to say it, but the words refused to leave the tip of your tongue. A sob stuck uncomfortably in your throat, but you couldn’t cry. You couldn’t let your guard down; not in front of Hydra.

Not in front of the people who held your mother’s life in their greedy hands, only agreeing to save it if they could benefit from doing so. You refused to show them an ounce of your vulnerability.

Still wearing that ugly grin, the man who seemed to be leading the Hydra soldiers brought himself back between you and your parents, and you couldn’t help but glower at him. “Well, I believe congratulations are in order. Princess, you’re getting married.”

“You’re sick.” Steve spat, but the man just snickered.

“Soldiers, prepare the carriage for our departure,” He called over his shoulder, and the expressionless soldiers obeyed, marching past you to unlock the garden gate, revealing another dozen soldiers right outside. “Oh, how rude of me, I haven’t even introduced myself.”

He reached for your hand, but Steve was quick to bat it away, drawing his sword from his hip with a stern stare. But by doing so, the soldiers stood at the gate followed suit, ready to lunge at the valet if his sword moved any closer to their leader. With great reluctance, your friend put his weapon away, and the man reached for your hand yet again.

His hands were rough, and you couldn’t hide your grimace at the dirt he’d failed to wash from them. Moving agonisingly slow, he brought your silk-soft hand to his lips. “I’m Brock; we’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other once you settle in Hydra.”

You could’ve thrown up, right then and there. He was enjoying it, seeing you and your family miserable. Once the public heard of the sudden news, they’d be terrified. If the King of Hydra could so easily take their Princess away from Taria, what was stopping them from trying to take Taria for themselves completely?

Brock chuckled as you tugged your hand from his grasp. “I hope you’re a little friendlier to your husband-to-be; I know that Prince Isaac is very eager to meet you.”

Husband. It was still almost impossible to process. A deal to save your mother’s life — and your own — made twenty years prior meant that your freedom was to be completely stripped from you. It didn’t matter how they’d treat you in Hydra; they’d be taking you against your will, forcing you to marry a man you’d never met, and if he was anything like his father, you would’ve rather been as far away from him as possible.

Of course, you could’ve refused to leave. But when you were surrounded by soldiers, ready to comply to any instruction Brock gave them, you didn’t want to think about the consequences of doing so.

You’d like to have thought Taria had moved on from such traditional norms of a kingdom ruled over by a monarchy. Money was provided to civilians that needed it — not only to survive — but to live a stable life, the richer inhabitants of the Kingdom were taxed more and didn’t complain; everyone had a chance of a good life in Taria. Your family certainly made sure of that, and not many other kingdoms had come to follow in your footsteps of upholding a fairer society.

However, the rules concerning the marriage of the King and Queen’s children had been the same since a monarch first took to the throne in Taria, and everywhere else too. And you didn’t mind that; you trusted that your parents wouldn’t force you into marriage with a man you were certain about. They’d definitely never have you marry Prince Isaac of Hydra if they had a say in the matter. But the deal was made a long time ago, and Hydra had a knack for never forgetting what they’re owed. It’d be illegal for you parents to go back on the agreement, and again, you didn’t want to think about the consequences of that happening.

“The carriage is ready, Commander.” A soldier announced from behind you, voice as monotonous as you’d imagined it to sound. His words still sent a shiver down your spine.

“I— I need to collect my things.” You stated to Brock, who waved you off.

“There’s no need; everything you could possibly need will be given to you at the castle, Princess.”

So you weren’t even allowed to bring your own clothes, or books, or anything to remind you that you’d never truly belong to Hydra. Of course they’d want to strip you of your identity; they wanted you on strings, dancing around for them as if you were a puppet. In their clothes, reading their books between the walls of their castle, perhaps it’d be enough to transform you into one.

You sighed, clenching at the skirt of your dress in annoyance. “May I at least say goodbye to my family?”

Brock seemed sceptical, but figured that perhaps you’d let down your front a little if he granted you what you’d asked. “You have two minutes, then we must leave immediately.”

As soon as he stepped out of your way to begin gathering his soldiers, you made a beeline to your parents, ignoring the gravelly pavement against your sore feet. Pulling the two of them into a loving hug, you didn’t care to suppress your tears that time.

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Your father mumbled in your ear, his tone dripping with regret. “The palace guards tried to stop them from entering, but there were just too many soldiers. And the knights weren’t aware—”

You pulled away, offering him a forgiving smile. “It’s not your fault, Father. Neither of you are to blame.”

Tearful eyes landed on your mother next, who could barely lift her gaze from the ground. “Mother, please listen to me.”

She glanced up as you addressed her directly, her frown deepening. “If you hadn’t accepted the deal, neither of us would’ve lived to see how beautiful Taria has become over the past twenty years. Living this life and having it taken away from me… it’s better than never having lived it at all, I swear.”

“The arrival of this day has plagued my nightmares ever since you were born,” The woman choked out a sob, immediately taking your hands in her trembling ones. “Don’t let Hydra take away the good in your heart, my dearest. And— And don’t lose hope.”

You gave her a nod of assurance, before stepping back from the two of them, afraid that you’d turn into a sobbing mess if you spoke to them any longer. “Thank you, for everything.”

As the two leaned into each other, your parents plastered on smiles of appreciation, of love, and you made sure to keep that image fresh in your mind forever. If that were the last you were to see of them, then you refused to let the memory get away.

Turning around, you couldn’t help but chuckle sadly at your friends, watching you with such fallen expressions; they’d never appeared so down. Around each other, the three of you never shared a dull moment. If you were to leave Taria to marry in the future, it was meant to be far less melancholic. Unfortunately, not everything can work out in everyone’s favour; destiny seemed to really not want to work out in yours.

Approaching Steve first, you quickly wrapped your arms around his neck, a sense of temporary relief filling you as his big arms enveloped your waist. He was a brother to you; it felt like you’d known him your whole life rather than a mere few years. He held you tight, almost afraid that you’d disappear into thin air if he loosened his grip in the slightest.

“I wanted to tell you...” He muttered softly in your ear. As the King’s valet and his most trusted confidant, Steve was told of the matter only a year prior. The King knew that Hydra would come knocking soon enough, and he believed that Steve deserved to know the truth, him being so close to his daughter and all.

“You couldn’t,” You responded, voice muffled by his shoulder. “I understand that.”

“Taria wouldn’t be the place it is without you; I guess I just thought that… nobody could ever take you away from here, no matter how hard they tried.”

Stepping back, you moved your hands to his shoulders, giving them an assuring squeeze. “Hydra will never be a home to me, Steven. Nobody could ever truly take me from here.”

His lips curled at that, though it didn’t seem to raise his spirits; it’d be impossible to. The worst case scenario had become a reality — Taria’s Princess in the clutches of Hydra.

Leaning forwards, you pressed a short kiss to his cheek, a token of your gratitude for the valet and one of your best friends. “Take care of yourself, Steve.”

“And you, _____.”

You grinned; it wasn’t often that he addressed you by your first name. He’d become so accustomed to calling you by your title around the palace that it slipped his tongue naturally, despite your pleas to address you as his friend, not his princess.

The moment your eyes fell to Sharon, she pulled you straight into her arms, almost knocking the wind out of you. She’d never been much of a hugger; even on her birthday each year she’d cringe when you and Steve would attack her with hugs and affection. But with the possibility playing on her mind that she may never get to be in her best friend’s presence again, she was happy to keep you as close as possible during the little time you had left there.

“Sharon—”

“There has to be a way to stop this,” The blonde shook her head against your shoulder. “It’s not— this can't be legal.”

A sigh left your lips as you pulled back, trailing your hands to her upper arms. “Somehow, it’s perfectly legal. Even if there was a way to prevent me from leaving, I doubt that the outcome would be any better than this.”

If marrying the heir to Hydra’s throne meant that the rest of Taria was left untouched, you’d leave your Kingdom without a second thought. Their King was not a man of reason; broken deals were always followed with brutal consequences.

Sharon knew that; Lidor happened to be on the receiving end of those consequences when the war broke out on her homeland. The Kingdom was meant to surrender themselves to Hydra’s rule when the previous king was in charge. But when he died and his son took to the throne in turn, he refused to let Lidor fall under such an appallingly cruel government. And following that refusal, Lidor was practically demolished.

If it weren’t for the help they received from Taria and their allies, the place would no longer have been inhabitable. It’d been rebuilding itself slowly over the past few years, and Sharon would’ve hated to see the same tragic thing happen to Taria.

But then again, look at what the cost was. You, trapped in the walls of Hydra’s Castle that’d seen more affliction and agony than your parents had ever even heard of — she couldn’t just let it happen. She was going to fight for you, as your lady-in-waiting and best friend.

Wiping at her eyes furiously, Sharon shook her head again, simply refusing to let you go so easily. “This isn’t goodbye, _____.”

“Sharon—”

“You’re always the one telling me to look on the bright side, to never stop looking for light at the end of the tunnel,” She spoke sincerely. “The war on Lidor had torn me up for years; without you, I have no idea where I’d be, but I certainly wouldn’t be happy. Now it’s my turn to get you through this.”

You furrowed your brows, uncertain of what she’d meant, but then she uttered something lowly, not wanting anyone else to listen in.

“I know someone in Hydra — they work for King Alexander personally. If I write to you, they’ll get the letters to you.”

Scoffing breathlessly, you narrowed your eyes at her. “Are you insane? Do you know how much trouble you could get into? And who do you know in—”

“Hydra is awaiting your arrival, Princess.” Brock’s teasing tone sounded next to the garden gate, and you assumed that meant your two minutes was up.

It was really happening. You were really being stolen away to Hydra, like a mere object.

Sharon took your face in her hands for just a moment, savouring her last few seconds with you before the smug idiot behind her snatched you away. “I love you, okay? We all do.”

“I love you all too.” You shot her half a smile, glancing up at Steve, who was already looking back at you, and taking a look over your shoulder to eye your parents once more.

Sure, Taria was aesthetically gorgeous, but it was the wonderful people who occupied it that made it a profoundly beautiful place.

The longing expression on your face soon faded when your eyes diverted to Brock, and announced that you were ready to leave. He offered you his arm; you ignored the gesture.

His cavalry were set to depart, already mounted on their dark-haired horses, shining manes blowing gently in the slight breeze. The carriage was rather small, only made to escort two people at a time, and the thought alone of being stuck so close to Brock for as long as it took to simply arrive at east docks made your stomach turn.

Sharon and Steve followed you out next to the stables, watching as the carriage pulled away with their beloved friend inside of it.

Steve naively waited for the nightmare to end, to wake up in his chambers and know that you were sleeping safely in yours. Sharon’s jaw was tight, already contemplating ways to guide you back to where you rightfully belonged.

The taller of the two finally tore his eyes from the carriage, now long gone down the dirt road heading east. He pressed his lips into a thin line, already sensing the frustration boiling in his friend’s blood. “Sharon—”

“You knew,” She intervened bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest as her narrowed eyes snapped up to Steve’s. “You knew that Hydra would come for her and you didn’t even tell me — didn’t even tell her.”

The blond’s lips parted to respond, yet we knew that there were no words he could possibly come up with to make the situation any lighter. “I know you’re hurting, so am I—”

“We’re not the ones being forced to start a new life in Hydra, Steve. _____’s the one that’s hurting. I just... I just think that she deserved to know.”

With that, the woman turned back abruptly, making a swift exit back through the garden gate. The valet remained in his place, a hand absentmindedly going to rest on the hilt of his sword as he observed the carriage morphing into a black dot on the horizon.

And for the first time in his life, overlooking the green land and breathing in the fresh air of the Kingdom he’d come to call home, he felt that Taria didn’t seem so beautiful.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes reader insert #bucky barnes au #royal au

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ughgclden · 3 years

Note

a third one??

i’ve got a pretty relaxed day today, so coming and going with responses is easier, downtime more conducive to spending 10/15 minutes writing you another letter, and i apologise in advance for the length of this one

in regards to my friend, she is really sweet, but we seem to have found ourselves in that dynamic when i never know if she’s being gay (platonic) or being Gay (romantic) and i’m already fairly emotionally stunted. house and i are alike on that front /hj

it was nice to be hugged like that, greeted like that, though, a reminder that it’s possible there are some people who do look for me in crowded rooms, even if it’s more likely than not that i’m not there. (incidentally, consider this and every other letter my way of hugging you)

i think if i had to teach mainly basics i would struggle, since i tend to go quickly and get excited, sometimes forgetting brains work differently than mine when it comes to retaining and learning information. i can see your point about the emotional support teacher though, i think there would be a… certain demographic that would be drawn to me, if you catch my drift /hj

i had an english teacher like that, she once gave me extra points on an essay for referencing dead poets society, and even though i don’t have her anymore, i still put her down as a reference, and email her from time to time anyway, she helped me a ton.

i think bookstore bee would be lovely, and it reminds me of aziraphale, which fits with you quite well. plus the best bookshops always have the pretty ladies behind the counters.

as for the other thing, i don’t want to minimise it by saying “it’s okay,” although that is my first impulse, mainly because objectively, it’s not, and because i know if someone said anything like that to someone i cared about i would. definitely get myself into trouble dealing with the bastard with the audacity to hurt my friends. that and i have the same anger for people like that, with the caveat that they can get away with directing it to me. truthfully, i’m used to it, which isn’t ideal, i admit. growing up, i went to a. forced integrated school, bringing in kids from other districts to raise test scores, and as most things turn out to be, the bussed in “smart” kids were mainly white, and the kids who originally lived in the neighbourhood were all hispanic. so naturally, as a hispanic kid from a different district in the gifted program, both sides hated me. i’ve got more than ample experience and that’s what makes it terrible. but i digress

the highs always comes with the lows, but in the words of ben platt, “when you’re high, i’ll take the lows, you can ebb and i can flow,” and i’ll be here to complement you in any way i can for as long as you’ll let me do so.

presenting is definitely scary, i recently had a debate kid ask me, “what’s the point of speaking if you’re not proving anyone wrong?” when i said i wasn’t in debate, but in speech, the sister program. the truth is, the point is telling your truth, even through other peoples’ words. sometimes we can’t find the words, but have no problem finding the memories that make pieces impactful, and true.

i bet in knitted jumpers with a skirt and docs you look lovely, and like someone remus lupin would be good friends with. i gravitate somewhere between remus and sirius, the two gay sides of me constantly battling that one out, so i end up with some… interesting outfits. cruella de ville is a goal, quite honestly, although i suppose technically shes classified as a villain, but then again, i’m a mentally unwell unstraight individual, so villains hot.

bee, if there’s anything i strive to do, it’s make you feel important, because you are, at the very very least, to me. and thats not silly, because believe me the sentiment is shared, thank you for spending time on me, love. i cant say it enough.

you are important, to reiterate, you are good, and kind, and the world could use more people like you. i only hope those lucky enough to experience your physical presence are sensible enough to know what a privilege they have in knowing you.

all of my love, bee, and a million wishes for a good day, good night, sweet dreams, and restful sleep.

until we meet again,

(likely tomorrow)

yours,

✨

please never apologise for the length of these, star. i'd read a whole novel of anything you say

it should me apologising for how terribly late my response is - i'm never much good at writing when i'm tired, or doing anything when i'm tired really. i'm one of those people who completely shuts down, and i wasn't going to torture you with my drowsy ramblings. im however writing this now with a fresh cup of coffee, so let's hope that helps

not knowing the distinction between gay and Gay is the worst; i can sympathise slightly on that front. when i was still figuring shit out i never knew if i just really loved my friend or really Loved my friend - it was all platonic, i know that now, but it was certainly a time. i think i'd always find myself searching for you in a crowded room - you have the sort of energy that draws people to you

you'd certainly draw in that certain demographic, i know it. although i think being the lgbt kids support teacher would be the largest honour bestowed onto a person, and no one else would suit that more perfectly than you. that's so sweet oh my god - i'm not too sure if my teacher had ever watched it, as sadly she never referenced it :( but she was very much a keating for me

i'm glad you know it's certainly not okay and i'm so fucking sorry that there's some ignorant assholes out there who think their stupid close-minded ideas and thoughts are important and need to be voiced, and they're justified in saying that shit. i truly hope things aren't as bad as they once were and if i could, i'd hurt anyone who's ever said that stuff to you (i can't fight, but i'd give it my best shot)

i totally agree with you- not everything has to be to prove a point, or make someone see something the way you do. sometimes it's just to communicate, to tell tales of love and beauty, to tell your own stories and thoughts. sometimes it's nice to talk just for the sake of it.

i think a mix of remus and sirius is wonderful - i aspire to have the sort of energy that sirius black gives off but alas, i'm more of a remus (or even a peter.. but we don't talk about that..) and yes villains are SO HOT OH MY GOD!!! yes they are bad ppl but they are hot and sexy so they can do as they please <3

we could go back and forth about this all day - but thank you lovely. not only do these make me feel important and loved, but they also let me talk about the smaller things, the little things that sometimes seem irrelevant because the world spins a little too fast to focus on the mundane. but even with you, the mundane is something spectacular.

have a lovely day, i hope it's filled with little bits of magic and wonder and joy. all my love star <33

#asks <3 #anon asks!#star anon #long post

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fanficflaneuse · 4 years

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One Day - Part 3

A/N: Hello, Magical tumblr friends! I have absolutely no self control. Writing has flown very easily lately and I just want to post as soon as I finish. First, as always, I want to thank you for all of your love and support. This has been awesome so far. Every little heart, reblog and note makes my heart soar. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Second, I really want to apologize in case my writing has too many mistakes. I’m a perfectionist. I usually try very hard to be polished and strive to have a near perfect grammar and spelling, but English is not my first language, so even when I reread my writing time and time again I still find a lot of mistakes. I’m sorry! I’m really trying my best and hopefully it gets better :)

Third, this post features Fragment 31 by greek poet Sappho, translated by Jim Powell.

Details:

Draco x reader (she/her pronouns) Word count: 1465 Summary: One day AU. Post-war. Since The Battle of Hogwarts, Draco and y/n meet one day a year.

Enjoy!

Masterlist

3 May, 2000

My dearest (Y/N/N),

I imagine you probably want to burn me at the stake right now. I know I promised to write as often as possible, but the things I’ve experienced in the last few weeks have shaken me to my core. And I can already imagine you saying something along the lines of “there’s always time to scribble a few lines, it’s not that hard, Dray”, but not everyone is a talented writer like you, darling. Be it as it may, in case my words don’t grant me your forgiveness with this letter you’ll find a couple of books I’ve read lately and I’d love to discuss with my favourite bookworm.

I arrived in Prague last week. Oh, (Y/N/N)! What a wondrous place. It’s everything you described and so much more. I spent the first few days sightseeing and walking around. I ventured into the wizarding library you told me about and I could totally understand your excitement. I spent two whole days there and I don’t think I covered more than half of it. It reminded me a bit of Hogwarts and a great deal of you. I miss you terribly, (Y/N), and the only thing I’d change about this trip would be having you with me. We should go on a holiday together, explore a corner of the world we have yet to see. What do you say?

I started venturing into the muggle parts of the city as well. Muggle tourists seem to be three times more of a pain in the arse than wizard tourists are. All in all, I’ve learned a great deal from them as well. I’ve visited cathedrals and museums and I even consulted a muggle about their literature. As much as I hate to admit this, you’re right: there are some awfully great things out there. That Kafka fellow? An absolute genius. The way The Metamorphosis made me feel is nothing short of magical. What a gross book (in the best possible way).

What else can I tell you, love? I definitely needed all of this. I needed to get away from Britain, away from my parents, away from everything I once knew. I needed to get lost in places where my last name meant absolutely nothing. It has helped me put things into perspective and get to know myself. I haven’t found myself just yet. I don’t even know if it’s possible, to truly find oneself. But at least I’m ridden with questions and challenges to my old beliefs. I am not ashamed to tell you I’m terribly afraid of the answers, but I at least I don’t fear finding them anymore. The price of not asking myself all I have to learn is much too high.

I hope this letter finds you well, (Y/N/N). Tell me what’s new with you. Please make my days better with some of your poems and short stories. I miss them as much as I miss you (plus, I want to collect a bunch of your original works to boast when you’re a famous writer).

I send you all of those hugs I cannot give you right now.

Hope to see you soon.

Love,

Your cuddling partner.

D. M.

...

My dearest Dray,

I was thinking about sending you a howler when you owl arrived, lucky bastard. I’d say there are no words to describe how much joy your letter brings me, but I am want to be a writer so this doesn’t apply to me, I guess. I knew a change of scenery would open your mind to different things and I’m genuinely happy for you. I hope all of those questions lead you to live your truth and build a life that truly fulfils you.

Thank you for the books, love. I’m quite impressed by your selection. Muggle books? I never would’ve imagined you, of all people, would send me muggle literature. I’m so proud! And Kafka is wonderful. I only got my hands on some of his short stories. I guess I’ll give that little novel a go now that it has your approval stamp. I’ll read all of these books and send you a very extensive review. I won’t quite forgive you, though, until you drag your arse back here and we can have yet another cuddle session.

I’d love to go on a holiday with you, Dray. What do you propose? I’ve never been to America and I’m really curious of what it has to offer. I’d also love to go someplace sunny, enjoy the nice weather and hopefully get a bit tanned, don’t you think? (Or at least try…You’re so freakishly pale tanning seems like a big stretch).

I’ll tell you some of my news. Last week I started working at the Ministry. I’m part of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement now. It is a lot of work and it includes a great deal of paperwork, but at least I have Hermione, Harry and Ron with me. (They all send you their regards, by the way. Ron says that if you don’t bring gifts with you, you won’t be allowed at the Burrow anymore. Hermione scolded him, but the threat remains). I like helping people. I guess this is just a more official continuation of what we’ve been doing since we’re eleven, don’t you think? I am learning a lot and I am very busy. It makes me happy and excited for what’s to come.

Yesterday we went back to Hogwarts for the second anniversary of the battle. It was all very gloomy. The wounds are still fresh. I got back home and cried my heart out. But I feel it was absolutely necessary for us – all of us – to be there. We need to heal collectively, Dray. I know you say it’s not your place. I know a lot of people won’t be able to look past the mark in your forearm. Many others, though, asked me about you and your wellbeing. I am sure it is going to take a while, but I hope you can go back and face those demons. I wish for you to recover. I cherish the day in which we all do.

You have no idea how much I miss you, Draco Malfoy. Even Harry is jealous. It’s not my fault that our cuddle partnership is absolutely awesome and that he’s a terrible cuddler. I guess you’re my one and only.

I have a bunch of short stories in the works. To be honest I have been a bit lazy lately. I’m so tired once I get home that I don’t really have enough patience to work on my tragic heroines. I’ve been writing a lot of poetry, though. I write verses on napkins and stray pieces of parchment, on the back of the forms I have to fill or at the margins of the books I’m currently reading. I’ll send you a couple of them.

(…) once I look at you for a moment, I can't speak any longer,

but my tongue breaks down, and then all at once a subtle fire races inside my skin, my eyes can't see a thing and a whirring whistle thrums at my hearing,

cold sweat covers me and a trembling takes ahold of me all over: I'm greener than the grass is and appear to myself to be little short of dying.

Hope to see you soon.

Love,

Your cuddling partner.

(Your Initials).

Draco unfolded the letter and read it for the tenth time. He loved how (Y/N) could write the most erudite poems and elaborate stories, yet her letters seemed to have a more conversational tone. It made him feel closer to her. He could imagine her saying every single sentence out loud, complete with guessing where would she breathe, laugh or make dramatic pauses.

In the last two years, Draco and (Y/N) had built a one of a kind friendship. It was foreign territory even to her, who was used to a tight-knit group of friends. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that his heart almost leaped out of his chest when he read the words “you’re my one and only”. If he had to guess, he’d say she had written that in a more teasing tone. After all, he had started with the pet names.

And yet.

The poem was the icing on the cake. He wanted to think she had written it with him in mind. Reading her writing was like having access to a very reserved piece of her mind he’d never quite grasp. And he wanted as much of it as he could get. Draco folded the letter once again and saved it with the rest. (Y/N) (Y/L/N), his best friend, would be the death of him.

Tags: @fandomscombine @okaydraco @iliketoast23 @naomi02hook

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burnt-kloverfield · 4 years

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@darkestimelines Tagged me. Thanks soooo much for the tag! It really has such a classic tumblr feel and I had fun answering. Answer 30 Questions and tag 5 blogs you want to know better. Long Post!

name: Kyrie

gender: girl

star sign: leo

height: 5′4″

birthday: you should be able to figure that out from my star sign. Or rather you should know my star sign from my birthday.

Time: 5:48 pm

Favorite Bands: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Bastille

Favorite Solo artists: Beth Crowley, Owl City

Song stuck in my head: atm it’s just that that like little “bum bum something and danger, still found wanting, something something man on fire, bum bum violent desire, musical something or other something something night to fall in love” I think it’s Bastille. Nope, I lied. It’s Dangerous Night by Thirty Seconds to Mars

Last movie: my brother has watched Toy Story That Time Forgot on repeat over the past 3 days, but that’s just 20 minutes. I don’t remember the last movie I watched.

Last show: I fell asleep to X-Files last night. I’ve been trying to catch up on Season 3 of Good Girls though.

When did I Create This Blog? September 26, 2011

What do I post? Ha. Ha ha. everything.

Last Thing I googled: Oh I actually googled the song for the lyrics question, but before that, the Mandalorian Cast

Other blogs: *side eyes* I have so many sideblogs and other blogs. This one’s my main, but the ones off the top of my head: reylo sideblog: @pulltothelight, cottagecore: @darkspringaesthetic, I think it’s kinda vaporwave but it’s more the feeling of taking a roadtrip in the middle of a humid summer and you see something bright that you know you’ll never see again and you might not even remember it that’s my @feverdreamsummer, wintery aesthetic @royalwinterkingdom, @buildingverse which was originally a fan blog for the fan web comic Roommates but now it’s sort of a mix of Labyrinth Pirates of the Caribbean and Phantom of the Opera. my selfie blog: @becominglolitaprincess. And I have so many others but they don’t get enough use to mention.

Do I get asks? Sometimes. Usually when it’s pretty clear I’m not doing good or if I reblog an unusually spicy ask game.

Why I chose my URL: This isn’t the blog, but I had to make a blog for a high school english class to critique a classic novel and the guidelines on the blog title included that the title needed to be blindingly brilliant, and so mine was so brilliant it Burns, but then also it was around the time that Cloverfield the movie came out, and while I’m not a big fan of the movie itself, I think I’ve only seen it once, I was using Klover as a nickname at the time, and still do, so Burnt-Kloverfield came naturally from that.

Following: 1,370

Followers: 1,322

Average hours of sleep:It definitely averages out to like 8 hours. It varies widely though. Naps have become my best friend.

Lucky Numbers: 9

Instruments: Piano, Saxophone

What I’m wearing: navy long sleeved shirt with a hood(not a hoodie since it’s really not as thick as a regular hoodie sweater), and jeans

Dream Job: I usually put writer on these, but my actual dream job is the job that would enable me to actually be a writer

Dream trip: going to Harry Potter world with my bff

Favorite Food: Thai Beef Salad, a mix of beef, cucumbers, and tomatoes in a soy fish lime sauce.

Favorite Song: right now it’s Achilles Come Down

Nationality: *flops face first into a pillow and sadly chants “usa, usa”*

Last book read: all the way through? The Naming. I’m in the middle of a lot of books, and I got the Stormlight Archives for Christmas and I’m really wanting to read them but my brain’s not ready for new worlds yet.

Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in: I’ve been retreating to a very headcanoned version of the Labyrinth universe recently. Narnia. and a peacetime Hobbiton. Hobbitton specifically, where there’s no ring and no nonsense going on.

Thanks so much again!

I tag: @eleveri @thegirldownthelaine @drtruth8 @reylokisses @fanwolfgirl @supermormonguy

#long post

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darlingsdevil · 5 years

Text

The Ballads of Rebirth (Arthur Morgan x Reader)

Chapter 11: The Resurrection of The Light

Masterlist

A/N: Hi guys! I’m still alive lol. I’ve had a lot going on, and when I usually write (on Saturday’s) have now been taken up by five hour rehearsals (rip me). An extra long chapter for you guys. I did a lot of editing, as I wasn’t originally happy with how this chapter played out. Also, we’re close to the end. Lee’s ending and Arthur’s ending (canon ending) will be two chapters each! After the original fifteen, there will be four more. The split will be at chapter 15, unless it ends up being longer (which it probably will). I’ll be writing some oneshots and AU’s + playlists for the finale. Still playing around with a few final ideas.. think I have it all set up (mostly..). I will say however, both endings will end relatively happy. Relatively.

Hope you enjoy

Also, if you understand the title, you are super cool B)

•••

“What the hell do you mean she’s gone?” Lee yelled.

“What does it sound like? She’s not in the room anymore.” Arthur quipped back, becoming increasingly annoyed.

Lee ran to the stockroom, you weren’t there. Then to his father's room, you weren’t there either. Mr. Rinascita was sleeping. Lee hoped he wouldn’t be woken.

Panic rose in Lee, it felt suffocating. He pushed the door open, shouting your name into the street, looking both ways and searching for your face upon the scatters of people. No response. Arthur came down the steps, holding his gun in hand, the air around him was heavy and electric.

“Where’d you take her?” Arthur growled at Lee. Lee turned around in the street, glaring at him.

“You think I know?” Lee laughed, his voice dripping with venom. The cool air fell over him, but he was nothing but calm.

Arthur pulled him into the general store by the collar of his shirt, Lee stumbled but didn’t fall, choking and sputtering on air.

“You think I’m scared of you, outlaw?” Lee spat at him, catching his breath.

“You should be, boy.” Arthur told him.

“I’m surprised she married a man like you.”

“You don’t know the first thing about her then.” Arthur scoffed.

It was like a standoff. The two men glaring at each other with pure rage.

“She's never done anything like this before. The second you show up, she goes missing.” Lee excused Arthur.

“You really think I’d abduct my own wife?”

“I’m sure you’ve done a hell of a lot worse than that.”

“You’re right. I have. That means I won’t have any qualms about putting a bullet right between your eyes either. But lucky for you, I care about my wife, so I won’t do that.” Arthur told him, slowly lowering his gun.

Lee remained silent, narrowing his eyes at Arthur.

“We have to find her.” Lee told Arthur. Arthur nodded, setting aside his hatred for Lee for a moment's notice.

“We’ll make a report for her at the station. The police officers will know what to do.” Lee suggested.

“No, police won’t do anything. I’ll find her myself.” Arthur grumbled already walking out the door.

“You’ll get lost out there!” Lee shouted. He didn’t care if Arthur got hurt out there, but he knew you cared for him deeply, why however, he wasn’t sure.

“I’ve tracked her down before. She never goes far.” Arthur chuckled bitterly, standing in the street.

Lee was silent for a moment.

“I’m coming with you.” Lee told him with confidence.

Arthur turned to Lee, raising a brow.

“Boy, you don’t know what’s out there. I’m sure she’s gotten herself into some sort of trouble already. Do you even know how to handle a gun?” Arthur asked him. Lee was angry, Arthur was talking down to him like a dog.

“No, but I’m sure I could learn. Besides with you, tough mountain man, I’m sure I wouldn’t need it.”

Arthur scoffed, but held open the door for him.

“Wait, I.. I have to check on my dad.” Lee said, worry filling him. Arthur was halfway out the door, ready to leave Lee behind.

“Wait! Please!”

Arthur swiveled around, waiting for Lee to move.

“The longer the wait the further she’s gone.”

“Please.” Lee begged him. Arthur understood, a long time ago he would have done the same for a certain father figure.

“Alright. Go on. Quickly.” Arthur sighed, leaning against the door frame.

Lee nodded, rushing up the stairs.

He was gone a few moments, and they were out the door and down the street in another.

Arthur was sure you headed for the hills, as you couldn’t go anywhere else since the river blocked that entry off. He hadn’t seen much of the terrain up there, only seeing it from a distance.

“We’ll head for the hills, she probably isn’t anywhere in the city.” Arthur told Lee, Lee kept a watchful eye, making sure none of the few strangers on the street were you. You could easily be hidden within the crowds of strangers during the day, but it was night and few people were out.

“How do you know she’s not in the city?” Lee questioned him as they continued their search.

“Everytime she goes missing she never stays in the city. She’s gone missing a few times before, usually when things start getting rough and she needs time to cool down.”

Lee was dumbfounded, he couldn’t imagine you thinking so rashly. But then again, you were very different before he knew you. Living with a gang, being a wanted outlaw, even marrying one. It still felt surreal to him.

Arthur remembered you went missing the day he earned his death sentence at the doctors office, he pushed you away and you ran. You were gone for two days, and when you came back you were even more upset towards yourself that you had left him when he needed you so badly, unfortunately he couldn’t look for you, there was too much going on and no one else seemed to notice you were missing either. It rained that day, like the sky was weeping for the both of you.

The men walked in silence, their heels clicking against the cobblestone streets.

“Did you miss her?” Lee asked him as they continued their search.

Arthur was silent for a moment.

“Of course I did. Everyday, everyday I woke up and my heart ached because I had no idea where she was, or if she was even alive. I missed her every damn day, and now I’ve returned to her.” Arthur’s voice was heavy with emotion. Lee could see the longing in his eyes, shamed burned in him, hidden by his wall of pride he had put up. Lee acted foolishly, automatically assuming Arthur fit the stereotype of the rugged outlaw, and perhaps he did and he had already seen that side of Arthur, but he had just seen the kind, emotional side of him. If you hadn’t fit the conventional outlaw style and he had given you a chance, why shouldn’t he give Arthur a chance?

And then Lee remembered. Arthur was the one thing standing in Lee’s way.

“I can tell she still loves you.”

“And she loves you too. Awful situation, ain’t it?” The two men laughed.

“I guess so.” Lee mumbled through his chuckles. He examined the faces of every person he had seen on the deserted streets, glanced down every alleyway and you were nowhere to be found. Arthur knew you wouldn’t have hidden in plain sight, you weren’t like that.

“How’d you even meet her?” Arthur asked him. They had reached the outskirts of the city, the houses were bigger and newer, large sprawling farm houses with new projects being added damn near everyday. The forest was about a mile out, with various hills that shot upwards making the land look like an ancient land giant, slumbering away for the rest of eternity. Perhaps if the men listened hard enough, they could hear the soft snores of an urban legend.

“She came with a family. A man, a woman and a boy. The man had scars, I remember. They looked like they had been running for days, and I bet they were, from what she has told me about all that,” Lee told him. Arthur nodded in response.

“They stopped in the store, she asked if we had any openings, we didn’t really need another set of hands but my father insisted on hiring her. The rest is history.” Lee finished.

Arthur was silent, taking in his words.

“How’d you meet her in that gang?” Lee asked him after a moment. Arthur looked surprised that Lee had known of his past, but recovered quickly.

“Well.. I’d been in the gang for about 10 or so years when she came along. We saved her from a gang who’d kidnapped her.” Lee stared in awe at Arthur, he had such a vibrant story, one worthy of the novels his father reads. Lee was a simple shop clerk, having never left the city and would probably never have to leave. This was the most exciting thing that had possibly ever happened to him but to Arthur, it was simply another day.

“She only trusted me at first, stuck by my side like a stray dog, but I was foolish and was still in love with a woman who couldn’t love me back so we wasted a few of the years we could’ve been together. Boy, was that girl wild. She could pull a gun on you faster than you could blink. One thing led to another, we got married, and then it all went to hell.” Arthur finished.

Perhaps it was foolish to walk through the outskirts of Richfield, at night no less. Both men hadn’t quite thought it through, blind by their love for you. Arthur was keeping a watchful eye on the ground, the rain had created mud but there were wagon and horse tracks covering a majority of the muddy dirt road.

“Should we shout her name?” Lee asked after a moment.

“No, I’m sure she’s in the woods. If we shouted her name she’d no doubt hide.”

“I still think we should enlist the police. What if she didn’t escape, what if someone kidnapped her?”

“I’m a wanted outlaw, and she’s still wanted too, I’m sure of it. Members of the Van der Linde gang are still at large after the mess we made down south. She’s too smart to get kidnapped.”

Lee’s eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. He was beyond worried. With the new arrival of your recently revived husband, and the wedding two weeks away, you could easily get cold feet and leave him, and to top if all off you could have been kidnapped, or ran away and never come back like his sister had. He felt his emotions bubbling inside him, how long would it be till he cracked?

“My sister ran off and never came back.” Lee told Arthur solemnly, the twigs crunching underneath their shoes.

“I’m sorry that happened to your sister, but I don’t think this will happen to my wife.”

“You better be right, Mr. Morgan.” Lee was annoyed at Arthur’s nonchalant response, you could have been seriously injured and he had barely any worry, like it was simply another day. It angered Lee.

They walked for a few more minutes, there were barely any tracks made by human footprints in the road and the night had begun to become disheartening for both of them. Your lack of presence took a toll on both men, more so on Lee.

Wolves howled in the distance, far off, Lee froze.

“We should turn back.” Lee spoke frantically.

Arthur turned around, looked back towards the road and then to Lee again and nodded.

“Maybe those wolves found John Marston instead.” Arthur mumbled, humor in his voice.

“Who’s John Marston?” Lee asked as they made their way back to the general store. It was a long walk home, the two men dreading it already.

“A close friend. Well, he’s not a friend. More like a brother to (Y/N) and I. Well anyways, he got attacked by wolves while we were in the mountains, more south then we are now, near Valentine - if you know where that is. Was a few months before everything went to hell. Never let him live it down for a moment.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Lee responded. The city was somewhat closer now, the street lamps looked like fireflies in the distance.

“I live close to that city now, with a friend, he built the cottage for us when I was still sick.” Arthur continued.

“You were sick?” Lee looked at him.

“Yeah, really sick for awhile. Did some bad things before I had realized how sick I was, and I guess it was an eye opener of sorts. Did some bad things to my wife too when I was sick, but it’s in the past now, I’m just glad I found her again.” Arthur told him slowly. Lee saw it then, why you had fallen for him, and why with Arthur still around you would never truly be his. You and Arthur had something Lee didn’t, and that was history. But Lee’s love for you was real, and that’s all that mattered. Lee would stand his ground and fight for your love. He just hoped you would make the right choice in the end.

•••

Mr. Rinascita was furious with Lee. Lee finally confessed to your absence during dinner on the first day in. Lee hadn’t mentioned Arthur yet, there was enough on his father's plate already. Lee had never seen his father so angry, usually the calm, but cheerful man..

“You lost your fiancé?” Mr. Rinascita said glaring daggers into Lee’s eye’s. Lee tried to explain things as calmly as he could, while avoiding the major details of Arthur’s arrival, simply stating an old friend had resurfaced and it overwhelmed you.

Lee nodded slowly.

“Well then what the hell are you doing waiting here? Go find the police, get them to find her. I won’t have what happened to your sister happen to her! Partire!” Mr. Rinascita yelled, shooing him away. Lee scurried to the door and pulled on his coat.

Next, Lee nearly ran to Arthur’s hotel, which was literally just down the street from the general store, and quickly told him what was going on. Arthur understood, but still opposed the idea. Arthur was sure to tell Lee to leave your real name out of it and only tell them your first name and Lee’s own last name, Rinascita.

After that was the police station. It was bustling with people, officers making reports at their desks and the jail cells holding multiple criminals. The woman at the front desk smiled at him sweetly.

“I’d like to make a missing persons report.” He told her, resting his hands on the wooden counter.

She nodded and pulled something out of a cabinet, handing him a paper and a pen. The woman told him to fill it out and once he was done and an officer would speak with him.

The paper held basic information, your name, age, height, last known location and place of residence. He wrote it all down and turned it back to the front desk. She led him to a desk that was incredibly clean and orderly and asked him to sit down.

The chair was rickety. The police station smelled of old wood with a mixture of gunpowder, it did not calm Lee’s nerves. He had never been inside a police station, or even talked to a police officer. This entire process was new to him. Lee secretly wished Arthur was here, Arthur would have been able to give the officers more information than he could have.

Lee’s foot tapped against the wooden floor rapidly, officers walked by him, paying him no mind. The desk he sat at was incredibly orderly and larger than a majority of the others. He felt out of place, ordinary, when probably everyone in the room had a much greater story than he had.

A police officer sat down, catching him off guard. Lee shifted uncomfortably.

“Hello, Mr. Rinascita,” The police officer said, setting down his paper file.

Lee responded with a small greeting. The police officer was young, possibly in his late twenties, like Lee. But his eyes were tired and cold, with a steely gaze that made you feel as though everything you said was the wrong answer.

“How long has your wife been missing?”

•••

The next day, a group of officers went to look for you. They started their search at eight in the morning and came back empty handed at nine at night. Lee’s anxiety grew as the search continued, the police officers didn't allow him to come. Sitting, waiting for you to return home to him was one of the worst pains he ever experienced. His father barely talked to him, his fury needing no words. Arthur hadn’t been to the general store, simply assuming Arthur had been searching for you as well. Lee felt useless, sitting in the store, watching the windows for your safe arrival home. It was truly dreadful. He hated every second of it.

Lee filled the void in his heart with working non stop, sweeping the floors every two hours, making sure the shelves were stocked and kept orderly. It was the only thing keeping him sane.

When nine rolled around, the police officer head of your case, came into the store. The same man with the judgemental gaze. He had learned to loathe that man already, speaking to the officer brought him no comfort.

The cop, Officer Clark seemed to be the bearer of bad news. Clark was discerning to say the least, pessimistic.

“We did find evidence of her at a small camp, a few miles outside of the city. The hounds were able to follow a trail, but wolves scared them off. We were close too, some of the men believe she could have been in the trees where we turned back. We’ll start the first thing in the morning again.” Officer Clark said cooly. Lee let out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, he leaned on the counter.

“Thank you, Officer Clark. Truly.”

“You’re welcome. We will find your wife.”

The word wife seemed so natural. Like it was meant for Lee and you alone.

Officer Clark smiled and left. The first genuine emotion Lee had seen on Officer Clark since their first interaction. He left quickly after that.

Lee was closer to you. Closer then it seemed he had ever been, yet you were separated from him by miles of land. He learned things about you, new things. Despite the shocking information he learned, he loved you even more. Your absence made him realize how much he truly loved you, you were his second half.

Lee would wait for you to return to him, no matter how long it took.

•••

#masterlist #tbor

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gra-sonas · 5 years

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Exclusive interview with Michael Vlamis from Roswell, New Mexico

Protagonist of this month’s web interview is Michael Vlamis, known for having played a small role in the television series “New Girl”, now he is seeing his career taking off thanks to Michael Guerin, the character he plays in Roswell, New Mexico, series created by Carina Adly Mackenzie and inspired by the Roswell High novels written by Melinda Metz. He recently produced and starred in his first feature film 5 years Apart and is currently engaged in several projects as a writer and actor. In this interview Michael talks about his passion for acting, his first difficulties in playing dramatic roles and his character in Roswell New Mexico. Through his ironic and light narrative, Michael advises emerging actors to follow their truth and honor their uniqueness, without forgetting to enjoy life to the fullest.

1) Roswell New Mexico will arrive in Italy in September 2019. Can you tell us more about your character and the plot?

Bout time! But seriously, I’m excited for all of you. Our show centers around three aliens living amongst humans in secrecy in small town, Roswell, NM. After being away for 10 years, an old flame of one of the aliens returns to town and begins to uncover the truth behind her sister’s death, which leads to us potentially becoming exposed. It’s a fun, wild show that has romance, action, sci-fi, and more. I get to play Michael Guerin – an alien bad boy with a heart of gold. Yes. I just said that about myself.

2) Have you ever seen the original series of Roswell, or read the Roswell High novels? If so, did Michael’s characterization inspire you in any way?

I was familiar with the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, but I hadn’t seen the show or read the novels. Once I booked the role, I did research on both to have a feel for the original properties, but I preferred to not dive in too deep, especially not into the original character. It was easier to bring a fresh take that way. Ignorance is bliss. But I have heard the original Michael and myself both have wild hair. So there’s a similarity.

3) In the series, topics such as immigration, its social consequences and sexuality are discussed, were you expecting the reactions that fans had about the Malex couple?

I had no idea what to expect! This was my first show. And the first time I’d be getting intimate with a man. All I knew was that I wanted to honor the story and the character as truthfully as possible. I poured everything into our scenes, as did Tyler Blackburn, the other half of Malex. He was an absolute joy to work with and a huge reason people have resonated so much with our relationship. I receive messages on social media daily from fans who say our characters inspired them to come out to their own families, which means a lot to me.

4) Where does your passion for acting come from? 

There’s nothing I love more than story telling and as an actor you’re constantly telling a story. I also love being honest and living without a filter, but that’s not always acceptable. When I act, I can do anything I want because I’m in character and I’m “acting.” If you aren’t living your truth, you’re holding back, and holding back is the worst thing you can do on screen. I relate and feel so much when I watch great actors and I can only hope I’m doing the same for our fans. The truth is what fuels me.

5) Have you ever had second thoughts or doubts about not being able to realize this ambition of yours? If you hadn’t become an actor, what would you have wanted to do? 

I didn’t realize I wanted to be an actor until my senior year of college. I was studying business and playing baseball at the time, but was always getting hurt. After my second knee surgery, I decided to hang up the cleats and audition for a short film. I booked the role and after acting in the film, I knew it was what I wanted to do. And to be honest, I never had a doubt I wouldn’t be successful.

I was so naïve, but I think it’s important to be naïve sometimes. If you live life practically, you’ll never achieve your dreams. Because dreams aren’t practical. They’re dreams! And I never knew what I wanted to do, even while I was in school, so I really don’t know. Probably a writer, director, or producer, which are all just has hard! I got really lucky. And I recognize that every day. But I think it’s important to note that even if it took until 90 to achieve my dreams, I would say I got lucky.

6) Did you have any difficulty in embracing new roles that didn’t belong to comedy? 

Oh, yeah! I got in my first acting class when I was 25 and it messed me up. The first four weeks I performed comedies and then my teacher, Sandy Marshall, started giving me dramas, which I struggled with. After a scene, she once said, “Michael, that was good. But we don’t have good actors in my class, Michael.” She was saying she only had great actors. She was very tough on me because she saw potential and one day, I had a breakthrough. Something clicked. I realized there’s no “right” way to do a scene. All you have to do is make the circumstances real and live truthfully from moment to moment. Sounds like the easiest thing in the world, but it was surprisingly hard for me to recognize. Once I did, I never looked back.

7) Have you ever encountered difficulties in identifying yourself with a character with completely different life experiences than yours?

I haven’t because the character, no matter how different, is made up of my own life experiences that may not be similar, but do relate. For example, the character I play in Roswell grew up in the foster system and was severely abused. He’s also an alien! Obviously, I’m not an alien and I didn’t grow up in foster care, but I was a fat kid longing for acceptance and felt like I had a lot to prove. I bet Michael Guerin felt similar. As for scenes where I have to portray something I’ve never experienced, such as losing a parent, I convince myself what’s happening is real. I have to, otherwise I feel phony. The difficult part is going to a place so deep and dark you feel sick to your stomach, but that difficulty is my favorite thing to do.

8) What would you recommend to a beginner who would like to pursue this career? 

Don’t be afraid to break the rules and never compare yourself to anyone. That’s a dangerous road and gets you nowhere. Everyone has a different story and all the things that make you unique are what are going to give you a career. Oh, and get really damn good at acting. That’s your only shot. Unless you have an aunt or uncle in the biz or something. If you do, let them know I’m down to be in their next film. Thanks.

9) What gives you the right charge to start a day of shooting on the right foot? 

Music and coffee. In that order. I also always drive to set with the windows down, even when it’s snowing. Adds a little bounce to the curls. Kidding. But maybe not…

10) Are you currently working on other projects?

I recently produced and starred in my first feature film, 5 Years Apart, which should come out next year. In addition to that, I have a TV show I co-created that’s getting some great traction, and a feature film I wrote just got optioned by a big producer. In 2017, I wrote every day out of desperation. Now, I’m known as a writer and those projects are taking off. Life is hilarious. Enjoy it.

~ latestmagazine.com

#michael vlamis #latest magazine 2019 #mgv photoshoot #roswell new mexico #malex #tyler blackburn #of course he mentions tyler #haha #vlamburn #vlamis's socks #i'm waiting for him to release his clothing line #long post is long #davy kesey

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annacwrites · 4 years

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the wip list

Alright, gang. Buckle up. This is going to be a long one, and at this point I can’t even bring myself to be sorry about it. I meant to put this off but then I started thinking about it, so here we are (at 1:05 in the morning when I have to work at 8:30, what am I doing?).

I’m going to break this down in a couple of ways—fanfiction vs. original fiction, fandom (if it’s a fanfic), series/universe (if it’s in one), and then the individual books themselves (if I have the ability to do that, because quite frankly, for some of these I don’t because I have no idea what the titles are or where I’m splitting the story yet).

Also, “WIP” is an incredibly broad term here. In some cases it means I’ve already written the whole thing but I plan to 100% rewrite it (and haven’t started yet). In some cases it means I’ve written half of the thing but haven’t finished yet. In some cases it means I have it all outlined but haven’t started writing yet. In some cases it means I haven’t really touched an outline on paper yet but I have it all worked out in my head. Take the “in progress” part of WIP with a grain of salt.

(Putting this whole thing under the cut because it is so freaking long. I apologize if the read-more doesn’t work on your dash. Idk what tumblr is doing.)

Starting off easy—the fics:

Harry Potter: (JKR can fuck off with her transphobia and cultural appropriation and all the other stupid and fucked-up shit that she’s done/promoted but, as I said to my friends, she can pry my next-gen fanfics from my cold dead hands. Cursed Child is not canon in my life because I’ve never read it and I don’t care what nonsense she came up with.)

The “In Your Arms I’ll Stay” universe (Tedtoire/Scorose):

The first fic in this universe is the first fic I ever finished. 110k words followed up by a ~137k word sequel. It is a disaster and a half but it’s also my baby and I fully intend to rewrite it one of these days. It is full of standard Tedtoire trope-y nonsense—best friends since childhood! two-year age gap! jealousy about other relationships! obliviousness!—and at 15 I thought it was a really good idea to try to turn it into a mystery too, which is a mistake that I have every intention of rectifying because it was unnecessary and I just didn’t know how to do drama and tension back then.

Anyway. It will probably be two parts again when I rewrite it because one part per school year just works, yeah? We’re covering Vic’s fifth/Teddy’s seventh year and Vic’s sixth year/Teddy’s first year out of school over the course of these parts.

Within this universe we also have Heartbeat and Bone, which is a Scorose fic that I’ve written probably 75% of already but have no intention of actually finishing before I rewrite it. I want to get the stories in the right order so that I can get details straightened out, so Teddy and Victoire get the rewrites first and then I’ll be revisiting this fic. Also full of trope-y nonsense (and my continued acceptance of the headcanon that the Heads have their own dormitory at Hogwarts, because it’s just too much fun that way).

some things were meant to be (Tedtoire):

Oh god, another fic with a cliché title taken from Can’t Help Falling In Love. I have zero regrets because it fits them perfectly.

This one is... half-done? I fully intend to finish it but I need to finish the outline first. It was my 2019 NaNoWriMo project and I am 100% just writing it for the lols (and because Teddy and Vic are like... my comfort ship where writing is concerned). I wanted to play with a different universe and change up their relationship and roles at school a bit, but once again... trope-y nonsense. It’s unavoidable with them. There is obliviousness everywhere.

Star Wars: (it’s Reylo, okay? It’s Reylo. I don’t want to hear it about how the ship is ~so terrible.~ That is literally the furthest thing in the world from a hot take, you can’t say a single thing that I haven’t heard before, and I’m a grown adult and can do what I want. Bite me.)

looking for the map that leads me home (Reylo):

Stole the title on this one from We Take Care of Our Own by Bruce Springsteen, because why the fuck not, right?

To put it simply: musician AU. To put it a little less simply: he’s got a dead career, she wants to have even the slightest shot at one, Rose is the best, Poe’s a singing heartthrob, Finn is a love-struck goofball. You know, all that fun stuff. The entire thing is based on a playlist that I made and every chapter has a song that acts as its theme. I haven’t touched it since January 2018. I want to finish it eventually but it’s not really at the top of the priority list.

There’s a few other fics from other fandoms that I’ve started and never finished but the odds of me touching them again are like... nonexistent, so I’m not including them here. I’ll update this post if anything changes on that front (but it probably won’t).

Now for the complicated part—the original fiction:

Maker’s Magic

This is a trilogy (or at least, it’s supposed to be). This is also a rewrite of the first story I ever finished—the fantasy novel that I wrote for my first-ever Camp NaNoWriMo back in August of 2011, when I had literally no clue what I was doing at all and essentially stole the plot structure from The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and built my own story around it. This is not a good way to write a piece of fiction that you want to publish, kids, but it is a damn good way to get your feet wet when you’ve never really written before.

I am reworking this story entirely from scratch. The characters are... kind of the same as the original story. Kind of. Maybe. I’ve changed a few names and merged a few people together and scrapped some others and entirely shifted the backstory of pretty much everyone, but... they’re definitely still the same, right?

Basically, at this point the plot is really only similar to The Obsidian Trilogy in that we’ve got a trilogy, we’ve got some elves, and it’s your standard good vs. evil fantasy story (in its own unique fashion, of course). I’m still working out the details of this rewrite, but this is kind of the Holy Grail of all of my writing projects and the one that I’m most concerned about getting right, so I’m anticipating that I’ll be in it for the long haul on this one. I’m hoping I might be able to get a draft of the first book done this year, but... we’ll see.

(I also don’t want to give too many details about this project, ‘cause it’s the one that I’d really like to maybe publish one day, so...)

The Willow Hill universe

This started as a single story plus a standalone sequel set in the same universe, conceptualized when I was fourteen and missing horseback riding terribly (so yes, it is a story for all those Weird Horse Girls™ out there). I wrote a good portion of it, then deleted it, then rewrote the entire thing, then deleted it again a few years ago because I was no longer satisfied with the writing quality (after hitting top 100 on the Teen Fiction list on Wattpad way back when, so... I didn’t do too badly as a 16-year-old, but the writing still sucked). I’ve been promising a rewrite to my Wattpad followers since 2016 or something like that (2014? Whenever the hell it was that I deleted it the second time) but haven’t delivered at all.

I now envision this universe as a duology plus the aforementioned standalone sequel, except it’s not entirely fair to call it a YA duology in that the first book is definitely YA, but the second is more romance-y?

I originally just revealed the main character’s endgame relationship in the epilogue of the story, but I love both her and her boyfriend and their relationship so much that I decided that I’m going to be self-indulgent and write the story of them actually falling in love with each other, so that’s book two (so really, you don’t actually have to read book two to understand anything, I’m just writing it because I want to and it’s also kind of a present to anyone who read the original story when they were also a teenager and is now an adult who wants to read other stuff).

Book one is now about the teenage struggle of crushes and trying to figure out what it is that you actually want out of your life and what you value (I say “now” because it was definitely way more self-insert-y the first time I wrote it and it is decidedly not at this point). It’s also sort of a love letter to trainers who are amazing and the kind of person we should all be so lucky as to be coached by.

These characters are my comfort characters where original fiction is concerned since they’ve been bouncing around in my head for the last ten years or so, and I’m hoping I can get at least the first book rewritten in the next year-ish, partly because I’ve been promising it for so long, and partly because I just really enjoy this world and I want to get back to it again.

The Coffee Shop Chronicles

AKA, I lived in one coffee shop on my university campus for pretty much the entirety of my college experience and it was a very inspiring place to be, so this has less to do with coffee shop AUs and more to do with the fact that I met several of my favorite human beings on this earth over a vanilla chai latte and mutual sass with the baristas.

(One of said baristas is very near and dear to me and introduced me to another regular who is now a very good friend with the statement “You’re both sarcastic assholes. You’ll love each other.”)

None of the characters in this universe are based on actual human beings whom I know, but I liked the idea of the campus coffee shop serving as this thing that tangentially connected all of these people to one another, much in the way that I am tangentially connected to god knows how many people via my barista friend. Essentially, the idea is that the stories in this universe are all standalone, but the characters sometimes cross paths with one another at Caffeinated, so it’s sort of... Easter-egg-y in terms of who pops up where in which story.

Currently I only have two stories in this universe that are legitimately plotted out, but there is room for any number of spin-offs based on whichever characters show up in those stories (or don’t—that’s the fun of it being a coffee shop. The barista is the only reliable character). Those two stories are as follows:

Chance Encounters (title so totally subject to change, also stealing the terribly summary from the Wattpad draft that never saw the light of day):

For Bennett McGuire, things with guys just didn't seem to want to go her way. From the disasters that were her attempts at dating in high school to the problem that had been Elijah Becker, she hadn't exactly had the best luck. With all that in mind, it made perfect sense to swear off dating until she finished college—that is, it made sense until one frozen day in February when Gordon Evans walked into her life. After that, who was to say what would happen?

What’s Your Metaphor? (once again, enjoy the terrible summary from the Wattpad draft that never was. I am cringing reading it but also too tired to come up with anything better):

"What's the point?"

It's a question asked widely, for all sorts of reasons, and it's one that April Hayes didn't know the answer to any better than anyone else. All she knew was that she had her plan, and she was going to stick to it, because it was the only thing that seemed to have any sort of logic to it in her life. The things she thought, the things she believed—well, they all fell before the plan, because she didn't have time to ask herself "What's the point?"

That is, she didn't have the time to know the answer—her answer—until one guy by the name of Drew Collier showed up and made her consider things that she had never even thought of before.

High Blood

Yinz can go read my WIP introduction post for this one. It’s a fantasy story. Just for the hell of it, here’s the summary from said WIP introduction post:

At the age of seventeen, Thessaly of Averak had a choice—take the crown of her people and her place as her father’s heir, or set it aside to become one of the High Warriors, dedicated to protecting their people and the country that her long-dead ancestor Enred built after leading its citizens out of a long and bloody war. Amidst raids and famine at the borders, she gave up her crown to better serve the people that her family rules.

Ten years later, all is quiet. At least, all is quiet until Beca’s pendant is stolen by a thief who disappears into the night on the journey back from the summer palace, Tess gets herself stabbed, and the discovery is made that the rock-solid foundations of their family’s claim to the throne—and the peace that depends upon them—are laced with hairline fractures.

(I didn’t write anything to speak of for Camp NaNo July 2020 and actually wound up deleting my project for this on the NaNo site because my dad was hit by a car while cycling the Friday before the weekend when I was planning to write like... 30k words to catch up, so obviously I gave up on that plan (he is doing well now, thank you for asking). I’m hoping I’ll get around to this one eventually because this particular universe arguably has the most potential for having multiple stories set in it, fantasy-wise.)

Emerson’s Lights

Natalie Flynn has been best friends with Evan Acheson practically since birth. They've stuck together through thick and thin, from her braces in seventh grade to his jump to stardom as a singer-songwriter their freshman year of college.

She’d do anything for him, but spending a week with him on tour involves a lot more than she bargained for, culminating in the turn of events that is Caleb Blake, lead singer and primary songwriter of opening act Emerson’s Lights, moving into her house for the better part of a month.

She always knew there would be complications being the best friend of a rock star, but this? This was one that she didn’t bet on.

(Aka, girl meets boy in a band trope. Yay.)

(NaNoWriMo 2020 project)

The famous musician story (this thing doesn’t have a title right now and I’m not even going to try)

Stupid, trope-y nonsense idea that I came up with for my own personal amusement and nothing else. I’ve written a few chapters of it but genuinely have no idea where this falls in the hierarchy of things that I want to get done. Long story short, she’s in grad school for history, he’s a famous musician in town recording for a new album, they meet in the library, she pretends she has no idea who he is, and shenanigans ensue.

And that is where I think I’m going to leave it. There’s four other stories that I can think of off the top of my head that I could theoretically add to this list, but they are legitimately just ideas right now so they can be added at a later date when they’ve manifested themselves a little more strongly. There’s also another quartet in the Willow Hill universe that I came up with in high school that could theoretically be added but I think I might just steal those character names and give them their own little world instead. We’ll see.

Basically, if you didn’t get the point from this list: I am working on a lot of things, and when I say I’m writing, it could mean literally anything on this list (or any of the other ideas that I have floating around). The stories/universe here are the most likely candidates for my time, depending on whether I’m doing a deep dive into my writing or just playing around with something fun, and hopefully (god, hopefully) I’ll be able to move one or two of these to a “completed works” list in the next year(ish).

(Or at least, as complete as a draft ever gets before you start going in on it again.)

#the wip list

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